


Coming Down on a Sunny Day

by maychorian



Series: Coming Down on a Sunny Day [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, F/M, Family, Gen, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 105,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2276331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maychorian/pseuds/maychorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2009, Castiel watches the Apocalypse end disastrously and makes a decision. In 1984, John Winchester suddenly finds himself with another little boy on his hands, one with dark, messy hair and sad blue eyes who won't leave John and his sons alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Book One: Like Superman (Part One)

1984  
Lincoln County, Nebraska

Dean had a cold. His warm little arms wrapped around John's neck, clinging close, almost stifling. John could feel his son's tiny ribcage rising and falling, wheezing, pressed against his own through the layers of shirts and jackets. Dean's face was hot where it lay against John's neck, but his weight was limp and solid and heavy, almost too much to bear.

Rain fell from the sky in sheets and torrents, and John looked up at the clouds from under the thin protection of the motel overhang, listening to the water rattling in the gutters. The gutter above must've been blocked with debris, for a column of water as thick as John's arm fell to the concrete in a cascade just a few feet to his left. Another mark of this particular establishment's poor maintenance. He hadn't noticed it last night, too tired from driving, from pushing, from fighting, roving the roads with his sick toddler and his crying infant. He had poured the three of them into the ratty beds without noticing the rusty pipes and moldy skirting and frayed electric cords. 

Only the light of day had revealed these dangerous defects to him, and John knew that they had to move out. Even though he had hoped to stay in one place for a few days and give Dean a chance to get better. Even though the cash in his pocket was running dangerously low and he needed a break to build it back up. Even though road-weariness had seeped into his very bones, weighing him down and making everything just that little bit harder.

Dean coughed on his shoulder, wet and loud, and John's eyes slipped back to the car. Just ten steps away into the rain, and he'd already packed everything else, even gotten baby Sammy into his seat in the back. But something inside him—maybe the memory of Mary and her fierce motherhood—made him hesitate to take his sick son out into the rain. 

At last, he forced himself to do it. He crossed through the rain and bundled Dean into the backseat, letting him lie down next to Sammy's infant carrier and covering him with a blanket from the floor. Dean's hands slipped away from his neck reluctantly, but the poor kid was half-asleep already, snuggling into the purr of the Impala rumbling warm around him. John's hand lingered on his forehead for a moment before he pulled himself away and into the driver's seat.

There he sat, hands wrapped too tight around the steering wheel, and stared into the rain. Where next? Where could he go? He had never wanted to leave Lawrence, but the fire hadn't ended with that one terrible night, the deaths hadn't ended with his beloved wife, and Missouri Mosely had scented the taint of evil. And so he had gone, hoping to draw it away, outrun it, keep his boys and his remaining friends and family safe. But now he had nowhere to go, no home to return to. He was wandering without purpose, without a plan, and that was the worst thing of all. What was he supposed to do?

He was so tired. 

Something moved in John's peripheral vision, and he jerked his head around just in time to see a gray figure loom out of the rain like a ghost, slipping in between one moment and the next, and a pale hand splayed across the window with a _splat_ of rain and glass. He jumped at the sound, helplessly, and then was furious at himself for reacting like that. It was just a kid, he saw, just a boy soaked and shivering, staring at John through the glass and the torrent.

He stared, breathing hard, not sure what he was supposed to do. The boy stared back at him, grim and silent, like some unwelcome harbinger. Then his palm lifted from the window, his hand curled into a fist, and he knocked, gently, once, twice, and again.

"John Winchester," he said, and somehow John heard him even through the patter of water over metal, the rumbling of the engine, the roaring of the sky.

John breath caught in his throat. He fumbled for the automatic lock, found it, and listened to the _ka-chunk_ as they depressed, sheltering him and his boys from this strange specter.

The ghostly boy had blue eyes, he saw. Blue eyes and a battered face, scraped and bruised, blood in his hair slowly being diluted by the rain to run across his forehead and down his cheek.

"I must speak to you, John Winchester," the ghost said. "Will you let me in?"

He shook his head numbly. Of course ghosts were real. Of course they were. Hadn't Missouri said? _More things out there in the dark than you've ever imagined, John,_ she'd told him, her voice both kind and sorrowful. _Most o' those stories we tell our youngsters to keep 'em out of the woods... Most of those stories are true. You take care now, y'hear?_

But he didn't know what to do about it. He didn't know how to fight them. That was what he needed—he needed information, he needed knowledge, he needed weapons. And he didn't have anything, anything at all, just a car and some clothes and a gun from his service days. 

And two sons, sleeping behind him, secure in the trust that Daddy would always keep them safe.

That was what started John's hand toward the gear shift. That was what pulled his face into a fierce snarl. "Fuck no! You get away from me and my kids!"

He put the car in drive and pulled out, ignoring the way the ghost snatched his hand back and stumbled away from the car. In the rearview mirror John saw the pale figure standing there in the rain, watching them go, before he turned his attention to the road ahead. They were getting out of here before even more supernatural creatures sensed the taint on John and his boys and sought them out. 

Someday John would know how to deal with these threats, how to kill them and destroy them and drive them back. Someday soon, God willing. For now, though, all he could do was run.

~*~

It was still raining when John found a new town, a new motel. He backed the Impala into the space next to the door of their room so he wouldn't have as far to walk, but they were still going to have to pass a step or two through the rain. When he opened the back door, Dean was awake, staring sleepily up at him, still bundled in the blanket. He didn't say anything—he rarely said anything—but there was the same weary question in his eyes as always. _Where are we, Daddy? Where we going?_

"We're here," John said, felt the gruff rasp in his voice. Too long since he had spoken to anything but ghosts.

He carried Dean inside first and settled him in the bed, then brought in the portable crib, then the baby, who by that point was crying and fussy from enforced captivity. He brought the duffels next, set out the few toys they had for Sammy to play with, then went back out to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything.

The ghost-boy stood there in the rain, watching him.

John halted one step outside the motel door, and the keys fell from his hand and splashed down on the wet concrete. 

The boy stood straight and pale, directly across from John in the aisle between the Impala and the car next to it. His arms hung at his sides and his face was blank and white where it wasn't bruised and bloodied. John stood there numbly, watching the rain bounce off him and sluice down his flesh. 

"John Winchester," the boy said again, solemn and ringing. He spoke like someone who was used to being heard, a voice of command completely at odds with his pitiful, waif-like appearance. "Will you speak to me now?"

This time John was ready. He pulled his gun, pointed it, held it steady, and took one step forward. "What are you? What do you want with me?"

Yeah, holding a gun on a ghost was probably not his best plan. But it was all he had. So he held on to it, and tried to make himself believe that it would work, that this was all he needed to protect his sons.

Strangely enough, it had an effect. A change swept over the boy, fear transforming his face in an instant, and he flinched sharply. His head jerked and he stumbled back a step, a low cry bursting from his mouth as his shoulder hit the Impala's side mirror, and both hands reached out for something to hold on to and found nothing but rain-slick metal and glass.

A dart of regret pierced John's heart. Ghost, monster, or supernatural beastie, the thing still looked like a child, only a few years older than Dean. He felt monstrous himself for causing that sort of gut-wrenching terror in that small face, that trembling frame. "What are you?" he barked again, forcing it down.

The specter groaned and leaned against the car, trembling all over. Did ghosts tremble? Did they interact with physical objects like that? John shook his head. He didn't know. He didn't know.

"I'm...just a boy," he said. "I'm just a boy. A human boy. I know...I know why you're scared of me, but don't be. Please don't be. I'm just a little human boy."

"I'm not afraid of you," John spat, but they both knew it was a lie. He took another step forward, holding his gun straight and bracing his arm with his other hand, tipping his head to sight along the barrel. "Why should I believe you? How did you find me? How do you know my name? How did you _follow_ me from the last place?"

"I just...I know things. I know you, and Dean, and Sam. I knew where you were because I...I saw it. I know you. I know...what you need to know."

Could this boy see into John's mind, read his desires? That was what he needed more than anything. Knowledge. Answers.

One more step, and the muzzle hovered only a few inches from the boy's temple. If John leaned down, he could press it right into that pale, wet skin. This close, John could see that his nose was bleeding, a sluggish tongue of dark red trailing across his upper lip. It looked like blood. It smelled like blood. The coppery scent was clear through the fresh fall of rain, utterly unmistakable. John was very, very familiar with that smell.

Did ghosts smell like flesh and blood? Surely they only smelled of wind and night and grave dirt. 

John let go of the gun with one hand, slowly, slowly, and reached a finger toward that ugly trickle. His own hand was trembling, too. He ignored the boy's instinctive flinch at his nearness and pressed down.

It felt like blood. The skin below was clammy, but it felt like skin.

"I'm just a boy," the child whispered. "I know who you are, and I came to help you. I know what killed your wife."

_Mary._

For a moment John couldn't breathe. The ability had been taken away from him, just like that.

Then the boy collapsed, his knees buckling, and he slid down the side of the Impala as his strength finally failed. John was frozen, staring, unable to catch him even from only inches away. The kid folded to his knees in a puddle by the front tire, bent and trembling, utterly spent.

John stood, towering over this exhausted, bloody boy. He felt the rain in his hair, on his face, saw the child's chest slowly rising and falling. They were done. They were both done.

He put the gun away and gathered the kid into his arms to carry him inside. 

~*~

John remembered enough first aid to know that the kid was dangerously close to hypothermia. His body was heavy and cool in John's arms, his breath too slow, too labored. His lips were tinged with blue, eyes glassy, head a limp, wet weight on John's shoulder. John pushed the door shut behind him with his hip, saw Sammy playing on the floor, Dean asleep and dwarfed in the queen-sized bed. His sons were all right, for now, so John had a little time to try to figure out this new burden. 

He carried him through the living area to the bathroom, leaving a trail of rain behind them on the carpet. John was soaked, too, but he didn't feel his own shivering, only the child's. In the closer quarters, the boy twitched against John, tensing up, and John didn't like what that signified. Not one little bit.

"Shh," he ordered gruffly, carefully setting the boy on the toilet to rest for a moment. He had to keep a hand on the shivering shoulder to hold him steady while he leaned down to turn on the taps, start the tub filling with warm water. "We gotta get you warmed up, that's all. You've been out in the rain too long."

The boy nodded, chin jerking with the movement.

"What's your name? You seem to know all about me, but I don't know anything about you."

"J-J-Jimmy." Now that the adrenaline of the confrontation was gone, the kid's teeth were chattering, thin little body shaking uncontrollably with bone-deep chill. "M-my name is J-Jimmy."

"Nice to meet you, Jimmy. Let's get you out of those wet clothes, okay?"

Jimmy's hands clenched in the wet fabric over his stomach, unwilling to give up this scant protection. John didn't give him much of a chance to get over his shyness, just reached for the shirt and started stripping it off. The kid's fingers were weak, and the ragged, stained clothing slipped out of his grip at John's tug.

Then it was off, and John sat back on his heels, staring. Jimmy looked away. John felt the wet shirt clenched in his fist, dripping over his knee and thigh, wringing out in his grip as he sat there.

The kid's torso was completely covered with bruises and marks, half-healed but still awful, still ugly, still clear as a fucking bell. They weren't the kind of scrapes all kids got in the summer, either, falling off fences, sliding into home. This was something else entirely.

John wanted to ask who had done this. He wanted to hunt the bastard down and beat him to a pulp. He wanted to tell Jimmy that nothing like that would ever happen to him again, not ever, not in a million years. 

But John had his own family to protect, his own two children who depended solely on him now. He'd made similar promises to them _(not again, gonna be okay, safe from now on, I promise I promise I promise),_ and those were first on his heart. He couldn't make another promise, not now, maybe not ever.

So he just set the shirt on the linoleum by the tub and reached back again, carefully but inexorably forcing Jimmy to relinquish the rest. The kid tried to resist, a little, where he could, but he was nothing against the will of John Winchester. Before long he was shivering in the tub, head bent so John couldn't see his face, knees drawn up to his chest in the circle of his arms. He let John minister to him, drawing up warm water in a plastic cup, pouring it over his welted back, his matted hair, washing away the cold and grime and leaving the livid evidence of long-term torment.

John didn't say a word. Just got the kid clean and warm, draped him in one of his threadbare Marine t-shirts, and folded him into bed next to Dean. The toddler was a furnace of fever, flushed cheeks and sweaty gold hair. At the new presence in his bed, he turned over in his sleep and snuggled up to Jimmy, digging into his side and throwing an arm around his chest. 

Jimmy lay frozen for a few seconds, then wrapped an arm around the little boy and held him close. He stared down at the five-year-old for a long moment, his face unreadable. Then he closed his eyes and seemed to just pass out, right there. John watched it all, not sure what to think about the conflicting currents tugging around inside his chest. He tucked the two children in, then sat back on the side of his bed, watching them, holding his chin on his folded hands. Two sick, traumatized boys... They ought to be together, he thought, still somewhat fuzzy with reaction and confusion, only that thought even marginally clear. And it seemed that the two of them agreed. 

He watched them for a long time. Until Sammy started fussing, demanding food, and his own stomach growled, and other needs intruded.

That was the beginning.

~*~

1989  
Fort Douglas, Wisconsin

Dean had always known that there was something different about his big brother. Jimmy was...strange. He did things and said things that just weren't normal. Dean was used to it, couldn't even remember life without Jimmy, without this occasionally fierce, occasionally abstract presence beside him, around him, over him. He knew, though, that Dad didn't really get Jimmy, that he got weirded out by the oldest Winchester boy on a regular basis. Jimmy would make one of his weird comments, give one of his faraway looks, and Dad would stare at him sideways, eyes wide and face blank. He didn't know how to deal with it, so he mostly ignored these things when they happened.

Dean didn't really understand Jimmy either—sometimes he was just _too_ weird, _too_ out there, as if he was from another planet or something—but he accepted him. Jimmy was his big brother and he loved him just much as he loved Sammy, though in a different way. So Dean listened hard to Dad's instructions and tried to follow them, for both their sake.

"And if someone calls..." Dad said, waiting for Dean to finish the familiar rule.

"Don't answer," Dean repeated patiently. 

Dad shook his head. "What's the rest? Dude, this is important. If it's me, I'll let it ring once, then..."

"I know! Yeah, you'll ring once, then call again."

"If I'm not back by Sunday night..."

"Get Jimmy to call Pastor Jim." Dean stifled a giggle at this. He and Sammy still thought it was pretty funny, how their brother and their dad's friend had almost the same name. The two had some similar ideas, too, a similar seriousness about God and faith and religion, though Dean had heard them debating theology behind a closed door once and quickly found something else to do. That stuff made his head hurt.

"And if someone tries to break in?" Dad asked, nudging his shoulder.

"Shoot first, ask questions later," Dean said promptly. That was his favorite of Dad's rules, because it made the most sense.

"All right. That's good, buddy." Dad looked over to where Sammy sat on the leather armchair, watching Thundercats. He loved that show, was totally engrossed it. Didn't even notice that Dad was leaving them again, but later there would be tons of questions and whining and complaining and demanding that Jimmy sing to him or Dean tell him a story or something. Sammy was annoying like that.

Dad put a hand on Dean's shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. "And most importantly?"

"Listen to Jimmy, look out for Sammy."

"That's my boy." Dad's hand circled around the back of Dean's neck and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm gonna go outside and talk to your brother before I go. Have a good weekend."

"Sure, Dad."

Dad scooped up his heavy duffel in one hand (always impressive to Dean—he had to use two hands and always grunted a lot when he tried to carry Dad's bag) and went out the door. Dean turned the lock behind him, even though he would have to open it again when Jimmy came in, and went to the window to watch Dad go. Jimmy stood by the open hood of the Impala, doing some last-minute maintenance. Jimmy didn't love cars, not the way Dean did, but he knew his way around them, and he always insisted on checking the engine before Dad took off for a few days. It was his way of taking care of Dad and making sure he came back to them.

Dad paused by the side of the car as Jimmy straightened up, facing him. They left a few feet of space between them, way more than when Dad talked to Dean or Sam. They spoke for a few minutes, probably the same instructions, Dad doing most of the talking while Jimmy nodded solemnly, closed the hood, wiped his hands on a shop rag. Right at the end Dad took a step forward and put a hand on Jimmy's shoulder, moving slowly and making sure Jimmy could see it coming. Jimmy still flinched, though. He almost always flinched when Dad touched him. That was why Dad didn't do it very often, Dean figured.

Dad looked sad at that, like he always did. Dean wanted to tell him not to give up, that it was gonna be okay. It had taken Jimmy a long time to get used to Dean and Sam hugging him, tackling him, wrestling him to the floor and covering him with tickles until he all but choked on his laughter. Surely he would get used to Dad too, eventually.

But Dad just stepped back and opened the driver's door, giving Jimmy a last wave before closing the door and driving away. Jimmy stood watching him go, then turned back to the motel.

"Hey, where's Dad?" Sammy asked suddenly, and Dean turned around, already rolling his eyes. Of course the kid had to notice _now._ "Did he leave again?"

"He'll be back in a couple of days, short stuff. You know he will. We told you what was going on just a little while ago, remember?" Dean moved to the door to unlock it for Jimmy.

"I thought you were talking about tomorrow." Sammy's little face scrunched up in displeasure.

Dean huffed, already tired of it. "Today, Sammy! It's today! Jeez, why can't you listen to Dad like the rest of us do? This stuff is important!" 

Jimmy came in and closed the door behind him. He knew at a glance exactly what was going on, of course. He always did. "You should pay more attention," he told Sammy, in that super-serious way he had, blue eyes big and round, mouth pulled down in a tiny circle. Dean wasn't off the hook, though—Jimmy turned to him and tilted his head, giving him that same serious frown. "You should be a little more patient. He's only a child."

"I know." Dean turned away and scuffed his shoe on the carpet, feeling the warmth rise in his cheeks. Jimmy was just as good as Dad at making him feel awful with just a look, a few words. Dad had never needed to spank them, though Dean privately thought that Sammy could have used it once or twice—that disapproving glare and disappointed tone were plenty punishment enough. 

Sam shuffled over to put a hand on Jimmy's arm, looking up at him with his big, pleading eyes. "Can we have saghettios for supper?"

Of course Jimmy said yes. Dean couldn't blame him, though. He couldn't say no to Sammy when he looked up at him like that, either. Even their dad had problems with that look.

Dean cooked for them. Jimmy had burned their dinner once too often when he got distracted with something. Usually he was very responsible, and he watched over Dean and Sam like a spiky-haired hawk, but ordinary, everyday tasks escaped him sometimes. Dean didn't mind. He felt important and grown-up, standing at the stove, stirring the canned food every now and then until it was hot. Jimmy was busy with his own project, anyway.

He did it in every new motel. Got out his little pot of homemade ink and slender paintbrush and went around the room, thorough and exact. He painted symbols on the door jambs, on the windowsills, in each corner of every room. It was better than salt, he said, more permanent and effective. Usually he did his best to hide the symbols in places people wouldn't see, so they wouldn't get painted over or cleaned off, so the next people who used this room would be protected, too. It took a long time. 

"They won't keep everything out," he'd told Dean once a couple years ago, when Dean was in a phase of following his big brother around, watching everything he did and trying to get involved. "These are symbols from one religion, only. I don't know any more than that. But they will protect us from many things."

Dean had wrapped his little fingers in the hem of Jimmy's shirt and held on tight, a lump rising in his throat. "From the thing that killed my mommy?"

Jimmy looked down at him very solemnly, nodding his head slowly. He always treated Dean with great gravity, as if everything he had to say was important, worth listening to, as if every question he had was worth an answer. Even Dad wasn't always that great at listening to Dean and answering him, and he was the best dad in the world, for sure, just like Jimmy was the best big brother and Sammy was the best little brother.

"The symbols will protect us from that, yes. And also from the thing that killed _my_ parents. That is their main function."

Jimmy's voice always quivered a little when he spoke of his parents, gone long before he had become Dean and Sammy's brother, but Dean knew that they had died around the same time as his mommy had. Then Jimmy had had a bad family, one that hurt him, and then he ran away and came to them, and Dean was awfully glad about that.

He wrapped his arms around Jimmy's waist and squeezed him tight, and Jimmy hesitated, then hugged him back with one arm, holding his ink-stained fingers above Dean's head. They never talked about that again, but the knowledge was always clear and sharp between them. They knew what the bad things in the world were; they knew what they could do and they knew to be afraid.

Sammy didn't know. Dean didn't want to him to. Neither did Jimmy and Dad. That was another silent understanding they had, among the three of them. It was kind of a Winchester thing.

Jimmy was just finishing up when Dean finally decided the Spaghettios were ready. He called Sammy to the table, and Jimmy poured the milk while Dean spooned the pasta and sauce into three bowls. It just figured, of course, that Sammy decided then that he didn't want "saghettios" after all. He wanted Lucky Charms.

"There aren't any Lucky Charms!" Dean burst out, losing his patience again. He didn't want to, but Sammy just brought it out in him sometimes.

"Yes, there are, I _saw_ them," Sammy said.

"Well, maybe there are, but there's only enough for one bowl, and Jimmy hasn't had any!"

Jimmy blinked at him. "I thought you were saving those for yourself."

"Yeah, but..." If they were just for himself, Dean would give the Lucky Charms to Sammy, no problem. He'd give anything to Sammy, though he would mutter about it and stomp around some to make his point. And Jimmy would give anything to _him,_ he knew that, and he didn't complain about it either. So by trying to save something for Jimmy, was Dean saving something for himself, too? But then, if Dean didn't stand up for Jimmy, no one would, because Jimmy sure didn't do it for himself.

This was complicated.

Jimmy shook his head. "In any case," and he gave Sammy a stern look, "it doesn't matter, because we are not having Lucky Charms for supper. We are having Spaghettios." 

And that was pretty much it. Jimmy's word was law when Dad wasn't there, and Sammy knew it.

He ate his Spaghettios.

~*~

By Sunday, Dean was climbing the walls. They hadn't left this room in three whole days. And as much as they liked each other, they didn't like each other _that_ much.

"Can I please go play at the arcade?" he asked again. "It's just next door. I won't be gone for long."

Jimmy was having one of his abstract phases, lying on the floor with his arms outstretched, staring at the ceiling as if he could see something beyond it. When Dean asked what he was doing during this he usually said "praying" or "meditating," but it was weird that he seemed to prefer to do it with his eyes open. Jimmy was just plain weird, sometimes. He was fifteen, but sometimes he seemed to be way, way older. Like, forty-five, or something.

Occasionally Dean could get away with something while Jimmy was like this. Not this time, though. "No," he said softly, absently, blinking serenely at the ceiling as if it had some kind of secret to tell him. "No, you shouldn't leave. It's dangerous."

"But, Jimmy..."

"No." This was more firm, and Jimmy gave him one of his gentle little glares, which was the closest he ever got to saying, _Fuck off, you pest. I'm busy._ "Sammy's ready for bed and he wants you to tell him a story. Mine are boring."

"Okay, okay! Jeez." Dean waved his hands in the air and stomped to the bedroom off the main living area. Sammy was already tucked in, washed and brushed and in his jammies, waiting expectantly for Dean, his big eyes and his chubby round cheeks peeking above the covers.

Dean told him a story full of guns and ghosts and pirates and beautiful damsels in distress, with plenty of explosions and fighting and bloody wounds. Sammy ate it up, as always, and asked for another one, but Dean told him "no" in the sternest Jimmy-Dad voice he could manage. He pulled the covers up around Sammy's shoulders and turned off the light, ruffling the kid's hair all over the place as he stood.

In the main area, Jimmy's arms were folded over his chest, his eyes closed as he hummed to himself. It sounded like one of those hymns he liked so much. Dean stood there for a little while, watching Jimmy's fingers curl and tremble at the edges of his ribcage, as if he was struggling, fighting, as if prayer and meditation was this active thing that took up all of his concentration and will. Which must be true in a way, he realized. Jimmy was always way tired after one these times, as if he'd been running for miles or doing push-ups until his arms were noodles, not lying on the floor or staring out a window. 

Dean sneaked past him and gently, carefully turned the lock on the door. It opened with only the barest hint of a click, and he turned the door knob with the same care, holding his breath. Jimmy didn't notice, didn't stir. He just kept humming, low and almost breathless. Dean stepped carefully outside, lifting the key from the counter as he went, and closed the door behind him.

Then he breathed out in relief, listening to the crickets sing, smelling the asphalt and the crisp evening air. Free. Probably for just an hour or so—he'd have to get back before Jimmy noticed—but he was free.

Dean didn't get much pocket change, so he had learned to make one quarter go for a long, long time. He didn't realize how much time was passing, busy killing aliens and defending the home planet, and he startled near out of his skin when the owner of the arcade leaned in the door and told him it was closing time. Dean glanced guiltily at the clock. Damn, it was late. 

Maybe Jimmy hadn't noticed. Maybe he was still busy doing his thing. Surely he would have stalked over and dragged Dean back if he'd noticed he was gone. But then again, maybe he hadn't wanted to leave Sam alone. He said it was dangerous out—maybe he wouldn't risk leaving the six-year-old alone to go after a disobedient little sneak.

Dean wouldn't blame him for being mad. He kinda wanted to beat himself up for being such an idiot. His sneakers slapped on the blacktop as he rushed back to their motel.

No Impala in the lot, so at least Dad wouldn't be there to chew him out for this astonishing breach of Winchester rules. Dean let out a breath of relief as he turned the key in the lock and let himself in.

And then he halted in the doorway, staring, feeling the blood drain away from his face.

Jimmy was nowhere in sight, and something was going on in the bedroom. The door was only partly ajar, but Dean saw a sickly white light inside the smaller room, heard a weird sucking noise like wind blowing through a cave. Something was happening and his brothers, his brothers were both in there. They were both in there and Dean had left them alone and how could he, how could he have done that? It was dangerous out tonight, Jimmy said, and the symbols didn't protect against everything, and Dean had left them to go play....

Slowly, ever so slowly, Dean stepped toward the bedroom. He reached carefully for the sawed-off in the corner, lifted it to his shoulder with one hand while he touched the door with the other. Slowly, silently, he pushed the door open, letting out more light and sound. And he stared, gulping.

Jimmy was kneeling on the bed over Sammy, who was still asleep on top of the covers. The older boy's back was bowed in tension, fighting to maintain his grip, absolutely still, pushing against... He was pushing against a big... _thing_ in a black robe, his hands on the creature's chest, holding it still. It was a monster, and its mouth was open, the source of the strange white light, impossibly long, sharp fingers curved around Jimmy's shoulders as if holding him still. They were locked in some strange, stiff-armed wrestling hold, keeping each other off, fighting with their eyes.

Because, because... Dean's mind stuttered, unable to take it in. Jimmy's eyes were glowing, white too, but pure and intense and holy, not at all like the sickly radiance in the creature's mouth. He panted, sweat sliding down his forehead and pale cheeks, throat convulsing as he swallowed as if trying to keep himself from being sick. 

As Dean stared, the monster jerked its face forward, closer into Jimmy's space, and Jimmy's mouth began to open, too. There was light in there, white and pure, and the monster was _sucking_ it, it was _sucking_ it out of Jimmy and into itself, it was _eating_ Jimmy, it was _eating him..._

"Dean, get down!" 

Dad's huge hand landed on Dean's shoulder and shoved him out of the way, roughly enough that it made Dean stumble, and then Dad was shooting, striding into the room with his gun held out straight from his body and shooting, shooting, shooting. Dean hit the door jamb, the sawed-off falling from his numb hands, clattering on the floor. Just as Dad shot, Jimmy seemed to just... _push_ with his hands, and there was an explosion of awful white light. Dean and Dad both fell back, shielding their eyes. In a small, clear snapshot of shock just as his eyelids slammed shut, Dean saw Jimmy's painted symbol on the windowsill, now scratched through as if by a long, evil fingernail.

The creature shrieked, a horrible sound, like a million nails being scraped over a million chalkboards. It went higher and higher and then it just...stopped. Cut off right in the middle, as if it had been sliced by a knife. The light beyond Dean's shielding hand diminished just as suddenly, winking out like a firefly. Dean raised his hand and looked, blinking dazedly at the bright spots that clouded his vision.

He was just in time to watch Jimmy collapse, falling over Sammy to lay terribly, scarily still on the bed. Dad scrambled to his feet and was there in a second, tossing his gun aside and hauling Jimmy up in his arms. "Dean, get Sam!"

His breath loud and rasping in his throat, Dean moved, pulling Sammy out from under their older brother and cradling him in his arms. Sammy had slept through the whole thing, he saw, a small corner of his brain laughing high and wild in hysterical relief. Still innocent of the darkness, the youngest Winchester was, even though it had been standing _right over his bed._

Oh, holy shit.

Sammy woke up as Dean accidentally gripped him too tight, startling in his arms and looking wildly around. Dean sat on the bed and held him, watched their Dad holding Jimmy. Jimmy's nose was bleeding and his eyes were shut.

"C'mon, kiddo," Dad muttered, noticing the thick trail of bright red just as Dean did. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to Jimmy's nose, pinching his nostrils shut to stop the bleeding. He looked at Dean, his dark eyes abruptly sharp and hard. "What happened?"

"I...I went out," Dean stuttered. The thought of lying never crossed his mind. He couldn't lie, not about this, not to his dad. "Just for a minute! I didn't...Dad, I swear..."

"Dean?" Sammy's voice was high with fright as he jerked in Dean's arms. He wrapped his hands around Dean's forearms and dug in deep, making him wince. "What's going on? Is Jimmy okay?"

"Shhh, he's fine," Dad said, his voice going soft, just for Sammy. Dean knew he was just saying that, couldn't possibly know if Jimmy was going to be okay, lying so still and pale against Dad's chest with blood spattered over his collar and down his front. He would never let Dad hold him like that if he was awake, would never...

Dean could feel his heart hammering, trying to crawl up his throat. Surely Sam had to be able to feel that too, pressed so tight in Dean's arms. "Come...come on, Sammy," he said. "Let's go to the living room and see if there's anything good on TV. Dad'll take care of Jimmy."

Dad gave him a grateful look, still mixed with anger that Dean had disobeyed strict orders like that, that he had failed his family to utterly and completely. Dean lifted Sammy off the bed and led him into the living room, shutting the door behind them, getting out of the way. At least he could do that right.

Nothing was good on TV and Sammy didn't want to settle, kept straining toward the bedroom, wanting to see what was going on with their brother. Truthfully, Dean wanted to be over there, too, standing with his ear pressed to the closed door. But he forced himself to stay, to entertain Sammy. He tried coloring books and puzzles and their few toys, even tried a couple of stories Sammy didn't want to listen to, then finally started singing one of Jimmy's hymns. He got all the words mixed up and he couldn't remember some of the tune, but he did his best, and Sammy finally leaned against him, listening. The kid had worn himself out with anxiety and wondering, and he fell asleep, finally, lolling on Dean's arm. Dean sat there, supporting him, tension drawing his shoulders up and tightening his neck, listening for any kind of sound from beyond that door.

He heard some soft murmurs now and then, but he couldn't tell if they were coming from his father or his brother. Once he got past the squeaky stage of being a teenage boy, Jimmy's voice had gotten pretty deep, almost like Dad's.

After what felt like a long, long time, the door finally opened and Dad stepped out, his eyes immediately finding Dean where he sat in the leather armchair with Sammy curled up against him. Dean gulped, expecting to be chewed out, but Dad just gave him a slow, sad smile, little more than a twist of the lips. "He's gonna be okay. Just really, really tired. C'mon, let's get you guys to bed." 

Dad scooped up Sammy in his arms, careful and slow, trying not to wake him, and carried him back toward the beds. Dean followed at his heels, eager to see his big brother. A little bit of the tension holding him strung tight as a wire had leaked out at his father's words, but not very much.

Jimmy lay limp and pale in the bed that was usually Dad's, his eyes only half open. At least the bleeding had stopped, though, and he wore a clean shirt, somewhat askew on his chest as if he hadn't been the one to dress himself. He smiled, weary and half-absent, when Dean rushed to his side and grabbed his hand. "Jimmy, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean..."

"Shh," Jimmy said, his voice a low, throaty murmur, as if he was too tired to talk very much or very loud. "It's all right. I'm glad you weren't here. It might have gone after you." 

"But I didn't... I shouldn't have..." Dean started, helplessly.

"It's over now," Jimmy said soothingly, wrapping Dean's fingers around his and squeezing them close and warm. "The creature is dead. It will never harm another child."

"What was that thing? What did you do? I saw this flash of light, and...and then..."

"Hey now." Dad's hand landed on his shoulder, heavy and warm. Dean looked over, saw that Dad had tucked Sammy into the other bed. The little guy was fast asleep, arms curled up under his head. "We can talk about that tomorrow. Jimmy really needs to rest."

"Okay," Dean said miserably, unconsciously leaning away from his father with his hip on the edge of Jimmy's bed. He glanced over at the fold-up cot in the corner, the one Jimmy would usually take when all four of them were together. "Dad, can I...?"

Dad sighed, understanding right away. "Sure, buddy, you can sleep with Jimmy tonight. I'll cuddle up with Sam."

Dean nodded gratefully. Dad went out to unpack the Impala while Dean slipped out of his clothes and into his PJs. Then he crawled in with Jimmy, who was already dozing, his cheek pale and smooth against the pillow. Dean took his hand again and curled up close, curving himself into his big brother. Close enough to feel the warmth and weight of him, strangely lightened now, as if the evening's events had taken something substantial away from him, something vital.

"You really gonna be okay?" he whispered, needing to hear it from Jimmy's lips.

The older boy's dark eyelashes fluttered before he forced them up halfway to look at Dean, his blue eyes faded and dull in the light from the single lamp Dad had left shining. "I will be as okay as I can be."

And that was as good as a promise.

It still took Dean a long time to fall asleep.


	2. Book One: Like Superman (Part Two)

1984

John hadn't been sure how Dean would react to waking up with a strange child in bed with him, but he was oddly calm about it all. The next morning John saw him stir and wake, rolling over under the weight of Jimmy's arm, and then he turned and stared at the stranger still asleep beside him, taking him in. The fever flush had receded, John was glad to see, and the five-year-old's eyes were bright with curiosity.

He saw John watching, sitting on the other bed giving Sammy his bottle, and sat up to look at him questioningly. It was too bad that he still barely talked, but he managed to communicate pretty well without it. John gave his son a cautious smile. "His name is Jimmy. He came yesterday."

Dean nodded and looked down at the boy beside him, the blankets bunching around his waist as he wiggled to a more comfortable spot. He reached out and gently, cautiously patted Jimmy's arm. Jimmy twitched and pulled away, fear crossing his face even in his sleep. He turned his back on Dean and curled up, protecting himself. Dean frowned.

He climbed down from the bed and circled around to climb up by John so he could watch Sammy, which was his favorite activity. Next to John where he could lean on his arm, he alternately stared at Sammy, then at Jimmy. The feeding was taking too long for Dean's patience, though. He kept looking back at Jimmy, then up at John.

"What is it?" John asked, mystified. Dean obviously wanted him to do something, but he couldn't figure it out. Sammy mewled a protest when his hand drooped, making the milk harder to suck, and John lifted his hand again.

Dean shook his head in a fit of (admittedly adorable) toddler exasperation, then pushed himself down from the bed and crossed over to stand by Jimmy. Chubby little hands tugged on the blankets, straightening them out where they had gotten disarranged around the sleeping boy. He pulled them up around Jimmy's chin and smoothed them to his satisfaction, then finally crossed back over to John and climbed up next to him again. 

"Oh. Good job, buddy. We don't want him to get cold, huh?"

Dean nodded and leaned his head on John's arm, pressing almost painfully into the bicep, which made it more difficult to hold the bottle steady. John grunted slightly but didn't try to dislodge him. Dean yawned cavernously, and John could feel his eyelashes flicking against his arm.

"You hungry, Dean?" John asked. The boy had had very little appetite over the course of his cold, but the coughing had stopped sometime last night and he seemed much more alert and energetic. He nodded toward the table in the kitchenette. "I got Cheerios. That sound good?"

Dean nodded and turned his head to wipe his nose along his father's arm, leaving a strip of yellow slime. John bore it with a grimace. "Okay. Sammy's almost done with his bottle, and then I'll get your milk. Think you can pour a bowl of Cheerios for yourself?"

Dean nodded again, more firmly. He sat up, then slipped down the edge of the bed and padded across the carpet in his cowboy pajamas. He had to kneel on the chair and lean his whole body over the table to snag the box of cereal and a bowl, but he managed the task with great competence for such a small boy. 

Sammy finished the bottle, alerting John with the hollow, sucking sound of emptiness, then squirmed to be let down. John took a few minutes to burp him, then let him toddle across the floor, and he lost himself in the morning routine of caring for his boys. There were tiny garments to draw over fragile limbs, bellies to feed, teeth and hair to brush. Through it all, Jimmy slept, a round lump of uncertainty and questions coiled under blankets smoothed by a little child's hand.

John had seen a library in this town and had planned to go there this afternoon. Libraries were good—he could let Dean and Sammy play in the children's section and keep an eye on them while he read. And eventually, someday, one of these libraries would have to hold some information that he needed. But now this little boy had come, and plans would have to change.

He hadn't forgotten what this strange child had promised, either. _I know what killed your wife._

At last, he tired of waiting for the boy to wake on his own. John stepped over to the bed and crouched down so he wouldn't loom over him, then carefully shook a blanket-wrapped shoulder. Jimmy had burrowed even further under the covers while he slept, but at the touch he jerked up, staring, blue eyes wide and panicked.

"It's okay, it's okay," John said. He glanced over his shoulder to Dean, stomach-down on the floor coloring in a dog-eared coloring book, Sammy pulling himself up on the kitchen chair and swaying on his fat baby legs. They were all right, wouldn't be able to hear low murmurs from all the way over here. "I need you to tell me now. What's going on? What do you know?"

The panic didn't just fade—it vanished abruptly. Jimmy's face seemed to shut down, just like that, from wide-eyed fear to a cool, blank slate. "I know quite a lot, Mr. Winchester."

John rubbed a hand over his face. "Yeah, like that. How do you know my name? How did you find me and follow me from the last motel?"

Jimmy sat up, cautiously, moving slowly as if every muscle ached. Which it probably did, John thought, remembering the bruises and welts that marked this boy. Jimmy leaned back against the headboard and sat cross-legged, his hands hanging limply in his lap. "I know things. I know the future. Terrible events are going to occur, and you have the power to mitigate them." 

"You're a psychic?" John rose to sit on the edge of the bed, facing the child. He hunched his shoulders consciously, aware of how large and broad he was. He remembered Missouri Mosely, who had given him his first glimpse into the darkness that crowded the world. If this boy was like her...

Jimmy was watching him, still with caution, his slight young body tense against the headboard, but also with a kind of calculation that was strange to see in someone so young. Had John had any room in him for anything but worry about his own family, his own sons, he would have felt grief for this boy, made so old before his time by the horrors he'd been forced to endure. As it was he only gazed back, similarly calculating.

"Something like that," Jimmy said at last. 

"But it's more than that," John said. "You can do things, too. Unless you hitched a ride just after I left that last motel, one that took you _exactly_ where you needed to go to follow me, there was no way you could have caught up with me that quick. What, can you fly?"

He said it jokingly, but the response he saw in those blue eyes, the shuttered flick of a dark, trembling eyelash, made him sit back with a gasp, unbelieving. Unconsciously, his hand began to inch toward the gun he always kept in the back of his belt.

Jimmy's arms wrapped around his belly, his breath coming a little faster, the fear returning. "You don't need that."

"Don't I?" John huffed out a laugh, heard how menacing it sounded and was not sorry. "Tell me what you are."

The quiet noises of Dean and Sammy playing had ceased. John noticed Jimmy staring over his shoulder and flicked his eyes over to his boys, saw them staring and silent. The room felt too tight and close, the air thick and heavy.

Jimmy's heels and hands dug into the mattress as he crab-walked away, slowly, toward the other side of the bed. He kept his eyes on John for every second, not even blinking. "I'll tell you, but not here."

John nodded, followed the boy, and stood up next to him, large hand circling the boy's upper arm before he thought about it. Jimmy startled at the touch, and John could see the pulse pounding in his throat, could feel the weakness of the boy's slender limbs and fluttering chest. He didn't lighten his grip, just walked them into the bathroom and shut the door.

Bringing them into even closer quarters was a mistake, he saw instantly. Maybe they should have gone outside, even though it was still raining. Sat in the Impala, maybe, something, anything besides this closet-sized room where the kid obviously felt even more trapped, more out of control. The instant the door shut behind them Jimmy wrenched his arm free of John's hand and shrank back against the wall, as far as he could go—which wasn't very far at all—arms automatically rising to shield his face from a blow. 

John lifted his hands, open, conciliatory, and sat on the edge of the tub. It made Jimmy slightly taller than him and also put the boy between him and the door, so he could escape if he felt the need. Jimmy slid away along the wall, brushing over the towel racks as he went, and pressed his back to the door where he bumped his head painfully on a garment hook. His hand fell on the knob, and John thought that was it. He was going to get out of there, run away, never come back, and John would lose the first lead he'd had on what really happened to his wife. But the boy stood there, panting, watching John but not running yet.

"Okay," John said, low and soothing. "Okay. Dean and Sammy can't hear us now. Tell me what you need me to know."

A spasm of frustration crossed the young face. "You won't believe me."

"I have no reason not to believe you." John rested his hands on his knees. "I don't know anything about what's out there, anything at all. You obviously do. I have no preconceived notions. And you...you know my name, and you say you're here to help me. You say you know what killed my wife and you look at my children as if you know them, as if you love them. So... I will listen to you. Whatever you have to say, I will listen. And I'll do my best to believe you. I promise."

Jimmy still shook, but John could see the struggle in his face, the calm mask fighting to smooth over his terror. At last the calm won, and the boy stood up straight, removing his hand from the doorknob. He still trembled lightly, but it seemed to be a purely physical reaction, completely out of his control.

"My name is Jimmy," he said. "That is the body I wear, the child James Novak of Illinois. But I am also Castiel, angel of the Lord."

John felt frozen. Only his eyes moved, widening and widening. 

"Angels aren't real," he whispered.

"I assure you that we are," Jimmy...Castiel...Jimmy said firmly. "You believe now that monsters are real, that ghosts are real, that darkness is real. Why not the light as well? The woman Missouri does not know everything in creation. She couldn't even tell you for certain what it is that killed Mary Winchester."

That was true, John thought, though the world was buzzing in his ears and everything seemed to float.

"And you promised you would try to believe me," the boy added, plaintively. "You promised." 

"I'm trying," John muttered. He gripped the tub on either side of him to steady and ground himself.

The kid's hand was on the doorknob again.

"If you're an angel, why do you need this Jimmy kid?" he asked, trying to regain his footing. "Shouldn't you just be yourself...Castiel? Like the angels who go visiting in the Bible?"

"Those visited by angels in the Bible feared them greatly," Jimmy said. "And only certain humans can see our true selves without burning at the sight. This vessel is for your benefit, not mine."

"But this kid...Jimmy... Jimmy's hurt and in trouble. You think I can't see that? Why are you using a child who's obviously been beat up enough? He can't possibly want this. He should be in a hospital. Or...or in a court room somewhere, testifying against whoever did this to him. Why are you using him?" John felt righteous anger rising in him again, and it felt good, it felt right. If there really was some kind of creature inside this boy, he couldn't possibly be a good guy.

Jimmy-Castiel slumped at this, misery pouring over his face. His knees, trembling for the entirety of this conversation, buckled at last, and he slid down to the floor and staredup at John with those big blue eyes as if asking for something he couldn't say aloud. "I know. I know Jimmy is hurt, and frightened, and I am unable to help him. But, Mr. Winchester... Mr. Winchester, I am also injured. I was wounded in the journey that brought me here and I...I am trapped. I cannot leave Jimmy's body. He deserves much better, and I deeply regret that this has happened, but there's nothing I can do about it. We're...stuck with each other."

John wasn't sure he should trust his perceptions about it, but the creature, the angel, the kid, whatever it was sitting there on the bathroom floor looking up at him with those enormous eyes...he seemed sincerely unhappy about this. John saw pain there, sadness, and a guilt so deep and overwhelming that it made him catch his breath.

"Can I...can I talk to Jimmy?" he asked. "The real Jimmy? Is he still in there?"

The boy nodded, and a change swept over his face. The thin edge of calm he had maintained was swept away in a flood of all-too-human fear and grief and weariness. His body language changed, too, arms wrapping around his chest to hug himself, and he held himself differently, more loose-limbed and more tense at the same time. He looked like a little boy, instead of a supernatural creature inside of a little boy, and John believed Castiel's story just that little bit more.

"I'm Jimmy Novak," he said softly, and his voice was different, too, higher, more emotional. And shaking with nerves. "Everything Castiel said is true. I can...I can see inside his mind, and he can see inside mine. We're...bound together. I was...I was locked in the closet again, Mr. Baker put me there, and then Castiel came and saved me. I was scared at first but I can...I can _see_ him, Mr. Winchester. I can see everything about him. He's weak and hurt and scared, and he's not used to that, he's never been weak and hurt and scared before. But he's also brave and strong and _righteous,_ and he wants to save your son from dying."

"My son?" John whispered. "My son is dying?" He didn't bother to ask which one. Either would destroy him. He could barely think, he... What was he supposed to do? It couldn't happen, it couldn't, it couldn't...

"Not now," Jimmy said hastily, seeing the terror in John's face. "But someday, yeah, things are going to happen... But, but we can change the future! That's what Castiel wants, that's why he came back here, came back in time from way far in the future. That's why he's here, that's why I'm here. To change things. To make them better." His arms unwrapped from around his chest and he lifted his hands as if in supplication, pleading for John to believe, to accept. "I want this, I do. We're stuck like this, but I want to help Castiel. I want to help you and your sons. Please don't send us away."

John buried his face in his hands, trying to breathe through it. He smelled the generic soap and shampoo of this tiny motel bathroom, and under it the smell of mildew and rot barely buried in bleach. He heard the soft, aching pants of this desperate boy, and he wanted to believe. Oh, he wanted to believe.

At last he pulled his hands down his face, looked at Jimmy over the long tan blobs of his fingers. The boy stared back at him, wary and hopeful in equal measure.

"So what you're saying..." He chuckled, deep and soft, and rubbed his hands over his face before giving the kid a slow smile. "What you're saying is that you really did fly, huh?"

Jimmy caught his breath, and then he laughed, broad white grin splitting his face. It was a little too hysterical, but it was real, genuine and joyful with relief, so young and sweet and true that it made John's heart ache in his chest. "Kind of, yeah. I mean, it hurts like everything, but it does feel a little like flying. Castiel can't do it very much, though. He's too hurt. But yeah. Flying."

John smiled. It felt good.

~*~

1989

Unlike Dean, Jimmy had never seemed at all interested in being a hunter. Dean didn't get it. His dad was a hero, saving people, killing monsters. Who wouldn't want to be involved in that? Who wouldn't want to be a squire to a knight?

As soon as Dean was old enough that Dad would let him hold a gun, he was out there every chance he got, shooting targets at his father's side. He ate up every lesson in hand-to-hand, tried to pass them on to Sammy, pestered Jimmy to spar with him when Dad wasn't around. He even did his best with the Latin, though he didn't really like it, because someday it was going to be very, very important. Dad said so and Dean believed him. More than anything else in his life, Dean believed in his father.

It wasn't that Jimmy ignored the hunting stuff or didn't take it seriously. He totally did. Jimmy took just about everything seriously, but especially this. It was his job to look out for Dean and Sammy, kinda like it was Dean's job to look for his little brother, only Jimmy was even more intense about it than Dean was. He just...didn't seem to like it. He made faces when he cleaned the guns, as if they smelled bad. Dean beat him more often than not when they were sparring, and he'd finally figured out that Jimmy really wasn't letting him win all the time because he was younger and littler—Jimmy just sucked at hand-to-hand. When Dad let them meet another one of his hunting buddies, Jimmy didn't push forward and ask every question he could think of, like Dean did. Instead he stood back and watched the stranger with narrowed eyes, the way someone would watch a snake, expecting it to strike.

Jimmy was weird. 

But that night, the night Jimmy somehow killed a monster that had attacked him and Sammy... That night, Dean lay awake, holding Jimmy's hand, watching him sleep. He saw the shadows under his big brother's eyes, the bits of dried blood on his upper lip from where his nose had been bleeding. He thought about the light leaking from Jimmy's eyes and mouth, the flash that had killed the thing attacking him. Was that really all caused by the monster, or was it just something inherently...Jimmy? For the first time, Dean wondered if maybe the hunting stuff wasn't so important to Jimmy not because he didn't care about saving people and hunting things, but because he had something else going on, something else that was more important to him. Some other task or mission or quest.

Hadn't he even said something like that in the past? Dean remembered being a little younger, maybe six or seven. It was a long time ago so he wasn't sure. But he still remembered a time when Jimmy was not his brother, unlike Sammy. He remembered things being different, a house and a garden and a mother with soft hands and long golden hair. Even at the age of six or seven, he was aware that other families weren't like theirs, that the Winchesters had been changed on the night his mommy died, and things would never be the same again.

At the time he had thought, with the reasoning of a little kid, that Jimmy wasn't a Winchester, so his life should be different, too. He should have a mom and a dad and a house and go the same school for years and years. He should have more. And he had asked Jimmy a question which ten-year-old Dean was now aware had been very, very rude.

Jimmy had just looked at him with those serious eyes for a moment, then said slowly, "My place is here, with you and Sam and your father. My job is to take care of you and guide you into the future. I'm a Winchester now." He glanced around and lowered his voice, so only Dean could hear. "And my parents...my parents died, too. A...a monster killed them. We are the same, Dean. We are very much the same."

But they _weren't_ the same, Dean thought now, watching him sleep. Jimmy was weird, and Jimmy was different, and something was going on.

Dean wanted to ask the next day—Dad had said they would talk about it tomorrow—but they were really busy with packing up and heading out. Dad was in a hurry to leave, shaking Dean awake when it was still gray and early to come help him. Usually Jimmy did most of this, organizing and sorting things into all of the correct pockets and compartments, but they let him sleep, curled and still in the warm cocoon Dean was forced to leave behind. Dad even dragged Sammy out, mumbling and rubbing his eyes, to clean up the little box of Legos he'd left scattered in the corner. Sammy wasn't happy about that. Jimmy slept through it all.

Dad still smelled a little bit like fire and salt from last night. Dean knew he must have dragged out the body of that monster and burned it. He had picked up a lot of things about hunting, even though Dad mostly tried to keep him away from it. They ate the last of the cold cereal and dumped out the leftover milk, and it was time to go. Dad went to the bedroom for Jimmy, and Dean took Sammy out to the Impala and made sure he was in there safe before going back. (Sammy rolled his eyes a lot but said, _"Yes,_ Dean, I promise to stay in the car, okay?")

Dean went back and checked everything one last time, the way they always did, making sure nothing was left behind. He knew Dad had already checked, though. He just wanted to be there when Jimmy woke up. After awhile he quit even pretending to look around and went to lean in the bedroom doorway, watching.

Dad was shaking Jimmy's shoulders, gently but insistently. By the tone of his voice, Dean could tell that he'd been doing it for a while. "C'mon, Jimmy. C'mon, kiddo. Wake up now. Can you hear me? Wake up. We'll get doughnuts. You like doughnuts. Time to get on the road. Castiel? You in there? C'mon. C'mon. Wake up!"

"Dad?" Dean whispered. His voice echoed strangely, so small and scared. Tiny. You almost couldn't hear it at all. Castiel? Who was that?

Dad heard him, though. He whipped his head around, eyes sharp and hard. "Dean! Shouldn't you be with Sammy?"

"He promised he'd stay in the car." Dean swallowed, his eyes still on his brother. "What's wrong with him? Why won't he wake up?"

Dad sighed, swiped a hand over his face. "He's just tired, Dean. You remember last summer, when you fell out of the tree? This happened then, too."

"It did?" Dean's eyes just about bugged out of his skull. 

He barely remembered that day. They had been running around at Uncle Bobby's, messing where they shouldn't have been messing. He'd been excited by the trees at the edge of the property, especially one with a thick, low-hung branch that seemed to beg for a small boy to climb on it. He slung himself up, all but cackling in his delight. Motels almost never had good climbing trees.

He remembered Jimmy's worried voice, below, ordering him to come down. Remembered calling back, telling his brother to come up, instead. Dean climbed into the high branches, relishing in the rough bark scraping his hands and knees and feet, the rustling of green leaves all around, the cool, fresh breeze...

And then there had been a snap, and he fell and fell and hit just about every branch on the way down....

The pain in his leg and head had been blinding, Dean remembered that much. It hurt worse than anything he'd ever felt in his entire life. His vision was almost white, everything in the world turned transparent, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to be burned alive, burned on a ceiling, burned to ashes.

Then Jimmy was there, blue eyes above him like a corner of sky. His face was terrible with fear and concern, almost nothing like Jimmy's face at all. His mouth was moving but Dean heard nothing. Then Jimmy's hands were on his forehead and his chest, two points of soft coolness in the world of fire, and everything went white.

When he woke up it was dark out, and he was in bed. Sammy was sitting there at the foot of his bed, waiting, and when he saw Dean's eyes open he started bouncing up and down, shaking the mattress and yelling, "You're awake, you're awake, you're awake, you're finally awake!" Dean had roused himself enough to shove his little brother off the bed and tell him to shut up, then promptly fell asleep again.

In the morning everything had been back to normal.

Hadn't it?

Dean tilted his head and stared at Jimmy, so pale and still on the crappy motel pillow, and tried to remember. Jimmy had been sick for almost three days after Dean fell out of the tree. He had stayed in bed the whole time, barely waking up long enough for Dad or Uncle Bobby to make him eat and drink, go to the bathroom, brush his teeth. Dean had figured it was the flu or something and was just glad he hadn't caught it, too. He was busy, anyway, trying to keep Sammy happy and out of the sickroom.

Now he looked at his big brother, and he tried to figure it out.

When he woke up the morning after falling out of that tree, he hadn't hurt at all. Not anywhere. He'd felt fantastic. And Jimmy had been so sick, sicker than Dean had ever seen anyone ever before.

"Did he..." Dean stopped, because it just sounded too crazy. "Did he, Dad... Did Jimmy...? Did he _heal_ me?"

Dad was watching him, carefully, his eyes warm and sympathetic. "He didn't want you to know. Not for as long as possible. He just wanted to be your brother."

Dean leaned more heavily on the doorway. "Jimmy has _powers?_ Is he... Is he like Superman?"

Dad chuckled, but it seemed awfully sad for a laugh. "That would be nice, wouldn't it? Not quite. But...something like that, yeah."

Jimmy moaned, rolling his head weakly on the pillow, and Dad turned back to him. "Jimmy? You waking up?"

Dean stepped forward without really thinking about it and climbed up on the bed next to the older boy, watching his eyelids flutter. Dad had a cup of water on the nightstand, one of those plastic cups that came with the room. When Jimmy finally opened his eyes and squinted up at them, face drawing tight in pain, Dad lifted his messy, dark head with one big hand and set the cup to his lips. "C'mon, kiddo. Just a little, then we'll get out of here."

Jimmy seemed too tired to even flinch the way he usually did when their father touched him. He just let Dad take care of him. He was as floppy as a baby, every muscle loose and uncontrolled, and Dean knew that all he wanted to do was go back to sleep. Jimmy tried to keep his eyes open, though, tried to keep an eye on them. After the water, Dad flipped the blanket off him, only his boxers and t-shirt protecting him from the cool air, and Jimmy shivered and woke up a little more. He still couldn't really do anything for himself, though.

Dad handed Dean a pair of Jimmy's socks. "Get these on him. I forgot to leave his shoes out." He went out to the car while Dean knelt at Jimmy's feet and pulled thick cotton over bony heels and protruding toes, white and cold as fish bellies.

Jimmy watched him from the pillow, eyes half-open and glassy with exhaustion. "Y'r hands're warm," he slurred. "S'nice."

Dean gave him a hesitant smile and held those cold feet in his lap, waiting for Dad to come back. "Jimmy?" he asked carefully. "Or...or are you Castiel?"

A shrug and a long, slow blink. "Cas...Cast'l's real tired. Real, _real_ tired, so tired it's makin' me tired too. Took him months to get back that much energy, conce...concentratin' alla time, n' then he blew it all in one shot." He snuggled his head back into the pillow and flopped his arms over his chest, too exhausted even to hug himself. "Mmm. S'comfy."

"Who is Castiel, Jimmy? Alien, ghost? What is he?" Dean kept his voice soft and gentle. He wasn't good at that, but he could do it, for his brothers.

Jimmy stared back at him a little more lucidly. His eyes were as serious as ever, though. He was thinking about it, deciding whether or not to tell him the truth.

Dean all but held his breath.

"Angel," Jimmy said. "Castiel is an angel. He's...inside me, but not me. I'm Jimmy. You know us both."

Dean nodded, rubbed Jimmy's feet. "You're my brother."

And that was all the energy Jimmy had. Dad got back just in time to watch his eyes slip shut again. The man cursed, but there was no heat in it.

He wasn't carrying Jimmy's shoes after all, just a pair of sweats. Dad sighed. "Come on, Dean, help me dress him."

It was both harder and easier than dressing Sammy when he was a baby. Easier because Jimmy wasn't wiggling all over the place and trying to get away so he could go play, harder because he was bigger than Dean and even kind of a handful for Dad—not heavy or anything, just long-limbed and gawky. When they were done Dad scooped Jimmy up with one arm under his knees and the other around his upper back, and Dean opened and closed doors on the way out to the car.

Sammy was kneeling on the backseat, staring out the window and watching them come. He threw open the door before Dean got there, scrambling out to hover around Dad, watching Jimmy with wide, worried eyes. "Is Jimmy okay? What's wrong? Wouldn't he wake up? When will he wake up? What are we gonna do without him? What if he never wakes up? I want him to wake up!"

"He's fine," Dean and Dad said almost exactly at the same time and with the same exasperated tone. Dad shook his head and went to lay Jimmy down in the back while Dean grabbed Sammy's shoulders to keep him from getting underfoot.

"Jimmy's okay. He's just really sleepy, so we gotta let him sleep, okay? He woke up for a while already, and he'll wake up again. We won't have to figure out how to get along without him because he's _fine._ Okay?"

Sammy's head was on a swivel, switching between staring at Dean and staring at Jimmy and Dad. "You sure?" he asked in a small voice.

"I'm sure." Dean looked over, too, watching Dad leaning all the way into the car, lowering Jimmy's head, cradled securely in one hand. "Hey, Sammy, you want to sit in front today?"

Sammy's eyes widened. Dean never let Sammy sit in the front when it was his turn. He nodded, little face lighting up with easy joy.

Dean was glad it was so easy to make Sammy happy. He hoped that never changed.

Once Dad got out of the way, Dean got in the back with Jimmy.

~*~

Now that Dean knew the big secret, he couldn't stop wondering if there were more. 

The next time Jimmy woke up was at a rest stop in central Illinois. He'd been working up to it for about ten minutes, making little shifts and moans in his sleep, and by the time his eyes finally slipped open, Dean was ready for it. He had squeezed himself into the footwell by Jimmy's head, rubber sneaker soles squeaking in the perpetual grit that littered the floor, and was staring into his eyes from only inches away, patiently waiting for the first sliver of blue to be revealed. Dad and Sammy were getting snacks from the vending machines, so it was a perfect opportunity.

Dean knew better than to pull this kind of crap on his dad—he was likely to get a hasty swat and a torrent of cuss words for something so stupid—but Jimmy just blinked at him, unmoving and calm. Of course, that could have had something to do with how utterly exhausted he still was, too. The older boy's eyelids were heavy, constantly sinking and rising again as he tried to meet Dean's gaze.

"Are you Jimmy?"

His big brother nodded, slow and steady, and Dean tried to believe him. It was hard.

"Were you an angel all along?" he asked. "This whole entire time?"

Jimmy didn't even blink, didn't even shift his body on the seat. "Since we've been brothers, yes. Castiel has been here since I was ten years old. He saved me."

Dean didn't have to ask what Jimmy had been saved from. "And he's always there, inside you? All the time?"

"All the time. But he doesn't force me, Dean. He's not a demon. I'm not locked up in here. I can take control of this body whenever I want. In fact sometimes I take over even when I don't mean to, if I get scared or startled. It was very difficult in the first few days, we were so mixed up and muddled together, and both of us were so confused and frightened. We're better at keeping ourselves separate, now."

Dean's fists were clenched at his side. He looked back on five years of memories, playing with his big brother, talking to him, learning from him. How many of those conversations had been with Castiel, not Jimmy? How many of them were lies?

"Would he leave? If you asked him to, would he leave?" If he wouldn't, Jimmy was still a prisoner, no matter how well he was treated by his captor. Dean wondered if any of the exorcism rituals in Dad's journal would work on an angel.

Jimmy watched him carefully, his eyes understanding and sad. "Dean... He can't."

"He can't _leave?_ Why not? Doesn't he want to? What if he has to?"

"He can't leave my body. He's..." Jimmy yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking one. The bags around his eyes seemed even bigger, darker, and Dean was sorry, but he had to know, he had to understand. "He's hurt, he... He's weak. He's been trying to heal but it takes such a long time, and then he has to use his grace to heal you, or save Sammy, or check on Dad when he's gone too long, or put a little power in the warding symbols, and it just... It's too much, Dean. It's too much...."

Jimmy's voice faded a little more with each tiny tidbit of information, and then his eyes fell shut and he was sleeping again.

Dean huffed out a frustrated breath and tried to make his fists let go. By the time he managed it, Sammy was running back to the car, grinning ear to ear and waving a package of Snowballs in a triumphant fist, and Dad followed behind him with peanut butter crackers and Mountain Dew. Dean got back up on the seat, pulled Jimmy's shoulders into his lap, and ate his snacks, still listing question after question in his head.

The next time Jimmy woke up was at another motel, and it was only because Dad had spent five minutes shaking him. He made Jimmy drink some apple juice and eat a few crackers, and then Jimmy was asleep again and Dean didn't get to ask any more questions. They just kept building up in his mind, though, an avalanche ready to fall if someone just whispered too loud. He could feel it looming over him, heavy and hushed. He didn't want to get buried.

Sammy pestered him to play Tic Tac Toe with him until Dean snapped and yelled at him to leave him alone, scaring the kid so much that he burst into tears. He felt bad then, spent the rest of the evening trying to make it up to him. But all the time he was thinking about Jimmy, and Castiel, and everything he had figured out about possession by eavesdropping or poking until someone answered. He remembered more and more times when Jimmy went weird, when he tilted his head like a bird and used big words that most kids didn't know. Other times when he relaxed and smiled and acted like a kid again. Around and around like a merry-go-round that never stopped, and Dean's brain couldn't stop spinning, either.

He didn't even know why he was mad. He just was. He really, really was.

The next day Dad had to go get supplies, and Dean volunteered for apple-juice-and-cracker duty. He sat next to Jimmy on the double bed, back straight against the headboard, watching him sleep yet again. He hoped that Jimmy would wake up then, without Dean having to do anything, just because Dean wanted him to. It would be like Jimmy to do that—he was always very accommodating and often did exactly what Dean wanted. Not always, though. 

Not this time.

"Hey, Sammy! Bring me some ice from the bucket!"

Sammy grumbled, but did as requested before going back to his morning cartoons. Most days Dean would be right there with him, but something more important was going on today.

A piece of ice held against warm, sleep-toasty toes was a powerful thing. Jimmy groaned and curled his feet away, pulling them toward his body and drawing his body into a tight ball wrapped around his pillow. Dean chased him, relentless. "C'mon, Jimmy. C'mon, big brother. Time to wake up."

Jimmy turned his head toward the sound of Dean's voice and slowly, slowly opened his eyes. "Dean?"

"Yeah." Dean plopped down on the bed beside him, making the mattress bounce with the creak of springs and _foof_ of cloth. "You gotta eat something. Do you need the bathroom?"

Jimmy sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Yes. And you have more questions, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Let's get those out of the way first. I don't want you to bang my head on the wall accidentally on purpose."

Dean huffed. "I wouldn't hurt you."

"You're upset, Deaners. You don't always act the way you mean to when you're upset."

Dean gave him a sideways stare. That was Jimmy's favorite nickname for him, but he didn't use it all that often. His voice was full of understanding and affection, and it sort of pricked a hole in Dean's balloon of indignation. "You can tell I'm upset?"

"I can always tell when you're upset. I know you, little bro."

Dean bumped his head back against the headboard, staring across at Sammy, who was completely oblivious. "I don't know why."

"Mmm." Jimmy hummed thoughtfully, blinking slowly as he stared at the ceiling. His movements were still sluggish and weak, but his voice was clear and sharp. "You feel betrayed. You feel like Dad and me didn't trust you, not telling you something this important."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's part of it." Dean's fist thumped down on the mattress between them, making Jimmy jump slightly, and he felt bad for that. "I just... Jimmy, how can I know it's really you? If this...this _angel_ was inside you the whole time, how'm I supposed to know when it's my brother talking to me and not some supernatural freak? How do I know it's really you here _right now?_ What if this Castiel is trying to fool me? How can I...how can I believe anything you say?"

"Dean...you've always been able to tell." Jimmy reached over, slow and careful, and laid a gentle hand on Dean's knee. Gentle, Jimmy was always so gentle. And when he wasn't... "I've always seen you looking back at me, and I know you could always tell. You knew there was something weird about me, but you didn't mind, because you loved me all along. Me, and Castiel, too. You did, Dean, you always did. Whether it's me talking to you right now, or Castiel, it doesn't really matter. We're the same Jimmy you've known all along, and you've never hated us before. Please don't start now."

When he wasn't gentle, that was Castiel. Dean pressed his head back against the hard surface, felt the little pain in his scalp, and squeezed his eyes shut to deny the tears. "But why didn't you tell me? Why didn't _he_ tell me? If you knew I could tell, why not trust me all the way?"

Jimmy sighed. "Castiel... He brings enormous burdens with him. Knowledge of the future. Terrible things. He didn't want to have to tell you. He wanted you to grow up as innocent as possible for as long as you could."

"Oh." Dean opened his eyes. He saw Sammy across the room, watching his cartoons, oblivious. Jimmy...and Castiel...they had wanted to protect him the way he wanted to protect Sammy. He couldn't blame them for that.

"He really is an angel? Castiel?"

His voice sounded very small.

Jimmy just nodded, gave Dean's knee a little squeeze. His eyes were drifting again, and he was almost out of energy. Dean shouldn't have wasted so much time with his questions, should have taken care of him first. But this had been important, he knew that now.

He wouldn't let Jimmy's head bang on any walls.

"My mom used to say that angels were watching over me," Dean said. "And then, after... I didn't believe. I didn't want to believe. It hurt too bad."

"I know," Jimmy whispered. "It's okay."

Dean watched Sammy watching his cartoons, and he firmed his jaw in determination. "We're going to have tell him. We have to tell him everything. I don't want him to be mad at us, too."

Jimmy hummed a gentle agreement and turned his head to get a glimpse of their little brother without lifting his head. "Yes. But not today."

"Not today."

The time would come soon enough. If Sammy started asking questions, Dean would tell him the truth.

~*~

1984

A sunny June day, and the Winchesters were at a playground somewhere in Oklahoma. John sat at a picnic table, keeping an eye on Dean and Sammy as they kicked across the red-brown dirt toward the kiddy slides, Dean holding his baby brother's hands to help him walk. The baby gurgled laughter, and Dean's tiny chuckle rang out, too. It was beautiful; everything was beautiful.

Across from him at the picnic table sat Jimmy Novak, Castiel the angel, busily licking an ice cream cone with a wet, pink tongue. As John watched, he turned the cone in his hand to lick up a trickle of melted white running down the side, capturing it before it hit his fingers with a happy smack of the lips. Dean and Sammy had already finished off their shared sundae, leaving behind a paper bowl on its side, smears of chocolate and butterscotch on the warped wood and residue from sticky fingers that would need to be washed. John worked steadily on his own cup of chocolate ice cream. Jimmy kicked his feet under the table, as childlike and carefree as John had ever seen him. 

The bruises were gone, the cuts faded to faint red. John didn't know if the flinch would ever leave, though. Some scars didn't heal.

Out of respect for the wounded boy, John had put his questions off for as long as he could, but they burned inside him, hotter and more painful for every hour of delay. Now, though, all three children were as content and happy as they could be, and John could wait no longer. He had to know. 

"Jimmy. Castiel."

The boy looked up at him sharply, blue eyes bright and steady. His face was calm and controlled, a sudden mask. Castiel. A rivulet of melted ice cream trailed down the cone, reached his fingers and crossed all four in a rippled stream of white. He didn't react. "Yes, Mr. Winchester?"

John drew a deep breath. "I need you to tell me what killed my wife."

Castiel nodded solemnly. "I will tell you. But you have to make a promise first."

"What sort of promise?"

Castiel turned sideways on the bench to look behind himself at Sammy and Dean. They were climbing up the ladder to one of the plastic slides, Dean behind his brother, guiding his steps and protecting him from any fall. "Your sons have to come first."

"What?" John's fingers froze around his bowl. He didn't know whether to be offended or infuriated or simply flabbergasted at the implication. "Why the hell wouldn't they?" 

"I know that revenge is a strong motivator." Those blue, blue eyes caught John's and held them steady. "Once you know who is responsible for the death of Mary Winchester, you will want to pursue that entity to the ends of the earth, even at the cost of everything else that you hold dear. You must not."

John just stared. Yeah, definitely leaning toward offended. "What kind of father do you think I am?"

"A good one," Castiel said earnestly. "Truly, you are a very good father. But you must not let that change. As you travel on down this path, as you become a hunter and begin to face monstrous creatures of all kinds, your priorities will be challenged many times. But I tell you now, _nothing_ on earth is more important than your sons. Dean and Sam are...they are the most important pair of brothers in ten millennia, and nothing is more important than keeping them safe and strong and free from all taints. _Nothing._ And so you must promise that they will always be first to you. You must guard not only their bodies but their souls as well."

The intensity in that young-old gaze raised goosebumps on John's neck and shoulders. He sat back, trying to meet this strange boy's gaze, and he couldn't manage it. Eventually he looked away, found his sons again. They sat together at the top of the slide, Sammy between Dean's legs, four little hands gripping the sides of the slide. Then Dean pushed them off and they slid down, shrieking their delight.

He felt the weight of this precious burden like a lodestone in his chest. Surely he could never lose his way. But the way Castiel spoke, the things he had seen... Something must have gone wrong in the future that he had come from. How was John to prevent that, alone and hapless as he was? He didn't even know how to fight a _ghost,_ for God's sake, let alone whatever threats Castiel saw coming that made him speak so powerfully and sternly.

"I'll help you."

The young voice was quiet now, pleading. John looked back to him, caught off-guard by this new softness. Still the ancient face of Castiel, the angel of the Lord, but his face was soft with longing.

"I don't have much to offer...I am wounded and weary and far from the powerful ally I should be. But everything I have, I will give to you and your boys. My life is yours."

His spread his hands, one sticky with ice cream, both young and small and helpless. It should have been a ridiculous gesture, worthy only of scorn or pity and careful refusal, but John felt the prick of unexpected tears. He could not reject this heartfelt plea.

He nodded, a swift jerk of the head. "I promise."

Castiel lowered his head, chest heaving with a deep sigh. "Then I will tell you everything."

John looked down at his cup, stirred the chocolate soup around, and took another bite. "Eat your ice cream."

The angel-boy stared curiously at the cone in his hand, then raised it to his mouth, sniffed it, licked the melting trickle across his fingers. John stifled a snort at the look of shocked delight, the spark in his eyes and sudden, startled smile. So Jimmy and Castiel didn't experience everything as one being, and it seemed that the angel had never tasted this treat before. He seemed to like it.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad.

"I have much to teach you. I'll do my best to give you all the tools you need." Castiel looked to the playground, watching Dean and Sammy walk around the slide to climb the ladder again. "The creature that killed your wife is a demon of the highest order, Azazel, a son of Lucifer...."

John ate his ice cream and listened to every word.

**End of Book One**


	3. First Interlude: Stand Your Ground

**First Interlude: Stand Your Ground**

"Hey, isn't that your big brother?" Eric asked, pointing.

Sammy glanced toward the edge of the playground, expecting to see Dean hanging around, looking cool with his hands in his pockets and a small scowl on his face, watching the elementary kids with narrowed eyes. This was one of the towns where Dean and Sammy's grades weren't in the same school building, but Dean usually came by to walk him home. Sammy didn't mind waiting for him—it gave him time to play around with his friends or just decompress after a long day of school, whether running around like a crazy boy or lying on his back watching the sky.

It wasn't Dean, though. It was Jimmy, tall and slim in his long-sleeved shirt, his face all angles and blue eyes. He peered across the playground with a tiny frown that managed to be more disapproving than Dean's most ferocious scowl. Sammy followed his gaze and saw Dylan, that older neighborhood kid who came around sometimes, selling a dime bag to a kid Sammy didn't know.

"Hey, Jimmy!" Sammy called, waving at him with both arms from where he sat in the chilly April dirt. 

Jimmy turned at the noise, gave him a tilt of the head in acknowledgment. He didn't smile, though, and Jimmy almost always had a smile for his littlest brother. He must be in one of his weird moods again.

As if to prove that, Jimmy immediately turned his unnerving blue stare to Eric, watching him frankly and without blinking. Eric shrank slowly down beside Sammy, hunching his shoulders, small round face drawn in dismay. "What is he _doing?"_

Sammy shrugged. "He's just...lookin'. Jimmy looks sometimes." He patted Eric's shoulder and used it to push himself to his feet. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay? I'll ask my dad or Jimmy about coming over to your house sometime."

"Hello, Sammy," Jimmy said when he approached, finally taking his eyes away from Eric. "Did you have a good day at school?"

"Totally kickass," Sammy said, just to test him. Jimmy didn't immediately say, _"Don't say ass."_ Yep, definitely in one of his moods.

Jimmy nodded solemnly, still staring off into the playground. "You know that drugs aren't good for you, don't you?"

Sammy rolled his eyes, holding his backpack by one strap and letting it bump against his leg. "Yes, I know."

"Not just when you're small. All the time. Not just marijuana. All of them." He looked down at Sammy for a second, still not blinking, then looked back to Drug-Dealin' Dylan. "They're bad."

"I _know."_

Jimmy stared for another second at Eric, then finally nodded and turned to start the walk home. Sammy forgot to move for a second, then hurried to catch up. Jimmy slowed his pace to wait for him, and they walked on together.

Sammy turned around as he walked to wave good-bye to Eric, who still looked kind of freaked out, then turned back, skipping a few steps at his big brother's side. "Where's Dean? Is he busy or something?"

"Your father is home early from his hunting trip. He picked Dean up from school to practice firearm shooting."

Sammy frowned, bumping his backpack harder against his leg."I wish Dad would take me to go shoot targets. I'm gonna be eight in nineteen days! That has to be old enough, right?"

"No, not really."

Sam huffed and scraped his shoe on the sidewalk. "Well, can I go over to Eric's house tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" Jimmy cast a glance behind him, but the school had already vanished around a corner. "That's short notice. Is he the boy who was sitting next to you when I arrived?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"I think you should invite him over to our place instead."

"Really?" Sammy beamed up at him. They almost never had strangers at their place. Not unless they had to, like if it was a teacher visiting or something. Even when they were living in an apartment, like now, instead of an icky motel. "Will Dad be okay with that?"

"I'm fairly certain, yes. You know I have the trust of...Dad."

Sammy bumped into Jimmy's side, still grinning. "You're awesome, Jimmy. Even if you do talk weird sometimes."

"Thank you, little brother. You're quite awesome, yourself."

~*~

Two days later, Dean walked Sammy and Eric home to the Winchester apartment, chattering amiably about the fun afternoon they were going to have. They had a TV and a Nintendo here, did Eric like Mario? Jimmy said he was going to make brownies... Dean hoped he wouldn't burn them this time. You kids'll have a good time, but just remember not to make too much noise when Dad gets home from work. The job he has right now makes him really cranky sometimes.

Sammy knew that their apartment wasn't in a very nice part of town, but the school wasn't either, and Eric said his place was near the school, so Eric probably didn't live in a better neighborhood. And his parents had let him come here, so it must be okay. And still... Still, the closer they got to home, the slower Eric walked. He wrapped his hands around the straps of his backpack, tugging them across his chest, and his feet scuffed on the carpet after they left the elevator. Dean has stopped talking, watching Eric with a strange look in his eye. Sammy didn't understand it, and it really bothered him. It was like Eric, his very own friend, was some kind of weird bug, and Dean didn't like him.

Jimmy opened the door to the apartment while they were still about ten steps away, and then he just stood there in the doorway, watching them come. It was so weird, both of his big brothers watching Eric with that intent, focused look in their eyes, and Sammy looked between them, from one to the other, trying to understand. Eric hunched his shoulders up and quit walking just before the door, looking up at the older boys with big pleading eyes. Sammy didn't get it at all. It was really freaking him out now. What was going on?

Sammy was just about to stamp his foot and demand an explanation when Jimmy moved over to make room, still staring at Eric, but now making a little welcoming wave with his hand. "Come inside, Eric. Sammy's told me all about you."

Dean sniffed the air, leaning toward the apartment door. "Dude, do I smell brownies? Did you actually manage not to burn them?" As he leaned, his hand fell on Eric's shoulder, pushing him forward.

Jimmy nodded. "Of course I didn't burn the brownies. I know how much you love them. Come in, Eric. Have a brownie."

This time Sammy really did stamp his feet. "For Pete's sake, you guys, why are you being so _creepy?"_

It was too late, though. Eric had already been lured in through the doorway, and all hell broke loose.

Sammy really didn't understand what happened next. Dean pulled him inside and shut the door, tugging Sammy with him to stand against a wall, out of the way. Something weird was going on with Eric, something really weird, his eyes were all black and he snarled and tried to run at Jimmy, his fingernails like claws, his voice much too deep and strange to really be his.... Jimmy just stood there while Eric rushed at him, waiting, and it was like Eric hit an invisible wall in the air. He bounced back, curly brown hair flying, and he looked up at the ceiling for a second before turning back to Jimmy. He growled like an animal now and it was so weird and scary and Sammy was so confused and his breath wasn't working right and what was going on, what was going on? There were marks on the ceiling and pieces of white light coming out of Jimmy's eyes and his voice was deep and sonorous and as powerful as Dad's and Sammy didn't understand it at all.

"I knew I felt your foul taint," Jimmy said, glaring at little Eric with such force that a lightbulb next to the door burst, just popped in a fizzle of sparks and a wisp of smoke. "Come out of him immediately."

Eric _howled._ He sounded like the creepy werewolf in that movie that Dean wasn't supposed to let Sammy see. And Eric ran at Jimmy again and hit the wall again and Sammy couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, his throat and chest hurt and he was so terrified he was crying without breath and it felt like the top of his head was going to fly right off.

"Oh, crap," Dean's voice murmured in his ear. He had wrapped his arm around Sammy's chest, holding him near the wall. Now he spun them, putting their backs to the room, and pulled Sammy down into his lap. "Sammy, Sammy, breathe. C'mon, dude, you gotta relax. It's okay, Castiel will take care of everything. Eric is okay, he's going to be okay. You gotta breathe, Sammy."

Sammy heard Jimmy's voice behind him, above Eric's weird, disturbing howls. Jimmy was speaking in a language Sammy didn't know, but it reminded him of Pastor Jim. The words were swift and powerful, spat out like rapid-fire bullets, and Eric sounded like that was exactly what they were, bullets pounding into him, tearing him apart. Sammy sobbed for breath and sagged against Dean's arm, trying to listen to Dean's voice instead. Dean kept talking, sounding strong and sure, like he knew exactly what was going on and it really was gonna be okay, somehow, someway.

At last Jimmy's voice rose to a crescendo, all but yelling the last words of his strange speech, and a rush of wind and darkness flooded the room. Sammy hunched over in Dean's arms, squeezing his eyes shut, and Dean pulled him close. Then it was over, but the stillness didn't seem real. Sammy sat there, gripping Dean's shirt tight in both fists, listening to the three of them pant for air.

"It's over," Jimmy said gruffly, after a few minutes of tight-strung silence.

Sammy felt Dean shift, looking over his shoulder back at their big brother. He gripped Dean even tighter and still refused to open his eyes.

"Eric?" Dean asked.

"Alive. Unconscious, though. I believe he will recover, eventually."

Dean sighed, muscles loosening everywhere except for where he still held Sammy. "That's good. And you, Castiel? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I did not use my power for this exorcism, except by accident. Your father will be displeased about the bulbs, I think."

Dean laughed shakily, clutching Sammy tight against him. "He won't care, man. He won't care one tiny bit."

As soon as he was feeling a little better, Sammy was going to demand answers about _all_ of this. Right now, though, he just held Dean's shirt and tried not to cry.

~*~

They were going to take Eric home later, when he woke up and was feeling better. And after Daddy had a chance to check out his house and his parents, make sure that they weren't possessed by demons, too. Right now Eric was sleeping in Sam and Dean's bed, limp but uninjured.

The three Winchester boys sat on the sofa, Sammy between Jimmy and Dean. The older boys had just finished explaining...a lot. Sammy rubbed his forehead, still aching from how much crying he'd done earlier, and tried to understand.

"So... Dad hunts ghosts?"

Dean nodded. "Other stuff, too." His voice was rich with pride. "Someday I'll help him. Jimmy already does."

"I'm sorry you found out this way," Jimmy said. "But I sensed the demon inside that little boy and I had to try to save him if I could. This was the most expedient way to make that happen. Dean helped me plan it."

Sammy looked up at Jimmy, blinking slowly. "And you're an angel?"

"I am Castiel, angel of the Lord," he said.

"Angels are real?"

"Yes." Castiel met Sammy's gaze. "But Jimmy is real, too. We share the same body."

Sammy slapped his knee. "I knew it! I always knew there was something weird about you!" He grinned suddenly, wide and vindicated. "You're an angel! That explains _everything."_

Dean's blink was all but audible. "It...does?"

"Well, it explains a lot." Sammy leaned back between his brothers, snuggling down between them. He was still pretty freaked out by what had happened earlier, by the knowledge that there had been a _demon_ inside his friend, possibly for the entire time he'd known him. But he was safe here, Jimmy and Castiel on his left, Dean on his right. Everything really was going to be okay.

"You gotta tell me everything now," he said. And they sighed in unison.

It was pretty freaking hilarious, actually.

"No, I mean it," Sammy said. "I'll keep bugging you until you tell me. I swear I will do it. Just get it over with now."

Heavy silence for a moment, then Castiel shifted slightly, tucking him in closer. And he began. "I will tell you as much as you can bear to hear. Some it is not meant for such young ears. But yes, I am an angel, and in 2008, I was sent to save your brother from a bad situation...."

It was the weirdest, freakiest, coolest bedtime story ever. And also the best, because it was a hundred percent true. And they were all the heroes.

**End of Interlude**


	4. Book Two: These Wandering Blues (Part One)

**Book Two: These Wandering Blues**

They moved around all the time. It shouldn't have been a surprise to Jimmy that they eventually ended up here. Pontiac, Illinois. Pontiac Township High School.

Seven years later and almost nothing had changed.

Jimmy didn't know what he was doing going to school, anyway. He already knew what he was doing with his life, and nothing high school could teach him was going to be the slightest bit useful. His life had been mapped out for him from the moment Castiel showed up in his head that day when he was locked in the closet listening to the rain patter down outside. Had been from the moment his parents had died in smoke and fire, really. His former life—any potential future he might have had, any dreams and desires and hopes—had all been eaten by a demon, and his body was given over to Heaven now. That was the way it was and that was the way it would be.

He didn't even need the knowledge, English and calculus and biology and history, any of it. He shared his brain with a freaking _angel._ Whether he wanted to or not, he already knew just about everything. Sometimes it was almost too much for his puny mortal mind, sometimes it was like bright white lights in his head, burning and burning, always there. But he'd learned to live with it. Castiel did his best to protect him, to tamp the fire and keep it tamed, but sometimes it shone through anyway, the infinite glory of the ages. Even in the pain, it was amazing, and Jimmy didn't blame Castiel for any of it. It was just a little much, sometimes. And it rendered any human education he could receive completely and totally useless. 

_You should be a child for as long as you can,_ Castiel chided him. _This is healthy and normal and good._

Jimmy rolled his eyes. _We've been over this, dude. I'm seventeen. Besides, anything childlike in me was consumed long ago. And what do you know about healthy and normal, anyway? You're a freaking angel._

Castiel shut up in his head, but it was sort of a resentful silence, Jimmy thought. Sometimes Castiel was more of a nagging dad figure than John Winchester could ever aspire to be. It was starting to get annoying. 

So Jimmy Winchester sat in homeroom, waiting for another boring, useless day at school to start. He leaned his head on his hand and flipped through his big, leather-bound Bible, a present from Dean and Sam on his last birthday. They had been so excited to give it to him, had spent months preparing, asking Pastor Jim to find a nice one, then pestering Dad to take them by Blue Earth sometime before the big day.... He hadn't had the heart to tell them that he wasn't sure he wanted it anymore. It had been years since he had stopped asking if they could try going to church in whatever flyspeck town they'd stopped at for the moment. He could have kept getting by with Gideons whenever he got the rare urge to look again at the holy book that reminded him so strongly of his parents, his lost life.

But this Bible... It was nice, it really was. Big and thick, nice big concordance in the back, silky red ribbon to mark his place, pronunciation guides and wide margins for notes and interesting footnotes and the words of Jesus in red. They'd even gotten the front engraved with his name and just... It was sweet, it was really sweet. So he read it.

Having the knowledge of an angel in your head kind of messed up the enjoyment, though. At least Castiel was politely silent on this subject, didn't point out the inaccuracies and omissions. It still left a bad taste in Jimmy's mouth, knowing what he knew.

Something jostled Jimmy's seat. "Oh, sorry."

He looked up at the shy voice, saw a girl bending over from the seat across the aisle, stretching for a pencil that had dropped near Jimmy's shoe. She looked up at him with her head bent near the floor, long blonde hair swinging over her shoulder, gathered away from her forehead in a simple black clasp. She smiled, slowly, just one side of her mouth, still stretching her pink-nailed fingers for the pencil. "'Scuse me. Don't mean to bother you."

Jimmy stared at her, cleared his throat, and then his foot twitched involuntarily, sending the pencil rolling toward the girl's fingers. She lifted it delicately between thumb and forefinger and straightened up, still facing him. She smiled, ducking her chin against her shoulder to watch him from across the aisle. "Thank you."

Jimmy looked down at the Bible on his desk, then back to the girl. He gave a firm nod by way of welcome, completely tongue-tied.

Why couldn't Castiel take over in _these_ situations? He was so much better at talking to...normal people. But no, the angel was stubbornly silent in his mind, insisting that he do this, that he "be a child." Naturally.

Jimmy wasn't good at this. Dean made friends everywhere they went, even if he forgot them the second they put that town in the rearview mirror. He always had someone to play with, someone to hang out with and talk movies. Sammy connected with one or two kids of like interests and formed a study group. (At the age of _eight,_ for pity's sake. That kid was going to be something amazing if Azazel didn't succeed in ruining his life.) Jimmy sat in the corner and avoided making waves. It was how he survived.

But this girl was pretty, and nice, and attractively dressed in a light green sweater and long jean skirt, and she was smiling at him. 

For lack of any better ideas, Jimmy sighed and went back to reading Ephesians. He leaned his burning cheek on his hand, though, and couldn't resist peeking through his fingers to see what she was doing. She was still looking at him.

Nuts.

Jimmy glanced to the front of the classroom. Mrs. Whitley was sitting at the desk, going through papers. They had already covered the administrative tasks of the day, and now it was basically free time. They weren't really supposed to talk, but other kids had their heads down in low conversation, anyway. 

Jimmy had never expected to be one of them. Even if he felt like flouting the rules, which he usually didn't, it wasn't like he had anyone to talk to.

Another quick glance through his fingers, which he hadn't moved from his face. She was still watching him, tilting her head slightly to the side as if to study him better.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

And now he couldn't stop staring at her. Great. Jimmy dropped his hand from his face and wordlessly flipped up the left side of the book so she could read the lettering on the front. That was usually enough to chase a pretty girl away—he was so obviously both a weirdo and a Jesus freak.

But her smile only broadened. She turned sideways in her seat as much her desk would allow, and he saw the glint of the gold cross resting in the hollow of her throat. "You're new to town, aren't you? Do you have a church yet?"

He nodded slowly, then shook his head.

"Wanna come to mine?"

Jimmy felt his eyes widen. He nodded quickly, before he forgot how.

She smiled again and ducked her head. Was this what he looked like from the outside when he did the very same thing? But it looked...it looked cute when she did it. 

"What's your name?"

Well. Now he was going to have find his voice. Jimmy looked down, kicked the leg of his desk a couple of times, then finally looked back at her. "Jimmy," he whispered.

Her smile was so broad and beautiful that he felt practically blinded by its brilliance. "I'm Amelia." 

It was much nicer than the white light of Castiel's power, that was for sure. 

~*~

Jimmy walked out of school in a daze, hunching his shoulders under his jacket against the brisk autumn wind. Today...hadn't sucked. This was such a massive departure from the norm that he really wasn't sure what to do with it.

It turned out that he and Amelia had a couple of other classes together besides homeroom. Jimmy couldn't remember what they were, not that it mattered. He rarely paid attention to whatever class he happened to be in at the time, depending on Castiel's innate geekiness and compulsive attention to detail to carry him through. It was like having a pocket calendar in his head, always reminding him of what he needed to do next, which homework assignment to turn in, how many minutes till the bell, and on and on. That gave him plenty of time to daydream about Amelia and how pretty and sweet and nice she was, even when he couldn't see her, so, for the first time in several years, Jimmy didn't really mind Castiel's constant nudging.

 _You really should be more responsible for yourself,_ Castiel said, because he hadn't mentioned it in, oh, a whole half hour or so. 

_Quiet, you,_ Jimmy replied, giddy and reckless, if only in his own mind. _I'm having a good time at school for once. Don't ruin it, okay?_

Castiel mumbled something in Enochian and subsided. The poor angel still blamed himself for Jimmy's problems, every last one, so he was almost as glad as Jimmy was that he'd finally found something about school to make him happy. Grudgingly, of course, but he was glad. Every small goodness in Jimmy's life eased Castiel's guilt, however lightly.

Jimmy detoured to shuffle through a twisted pile of leaves in the parking lot, just because he could, dark red and orange and gold sliding over his worn sneakers with a rustle like pages in a book. The breeze was cool and brisk, the sun a bright disc above. He felt like singing and dancing, clicking his heels in the air, hugging his brothers, kissing the world just because it had someone as wonderful as Amelia in it.

He finally reached his little red Ford Tempo, got inside and started the engine. He'd saved up for a year for this little junk heap, doing odd jobs wherever he could. John Winchester had supported the project, even contributed a few dollars from hustling, and he was the one who had checked out a dozen different used cars in the Chicago area before settling on this one. He'd actually been kind of over the top about it, insisting that Jimmy let him find a good deal for him, something reliable and worth the money. He had whittled the seller down a few hundred bucks, too. Which wasn't that much of a surprise, honestly, considering that this was John Winchester. He could be scarily intense about whether they were having hamburgers or meatloaf for supper, let alone finding a car for his adopted kid.

It even had a tape deck. Jimmy popped in the Peter, Paul & Mary album Uncle Bobby had given him and drove down Indiana Avenue, singing along at the top of his lungs with the windows down. It was only a few minutes to the elementary school Dean and Sammy attended, so he took a long-cut to prolong the journey, got a couple of songs out of the deal. He really loved Peter, Paul & Mary. It was his car, so his little brothers were not allowed to whine about his music, but he liked having a couple of songs to himself.

He reached the elementary school's parking lot and found Dean and Sammy waiting on the grassy edge, Sam sitting with his backpack propping him up, scribbling in a notebook, while Dean sprawled beside him, flat on his back staring up at the sky. Both little faces popped up at his honk, and they gathered their stuff and hurried over to get in the car.

There was a brief scuffle for shotgun, which Dean won as usual, and Jimmy's car was full of young chatter and bright, fresh faces. They always had plenty to say, plenty to tell him about what they'd done that day. The breeze combed through their hair as Jimmy drove back to the motel.

Dean propped his feet up on the dashboard, smearing dirt which Jimmy was going to make him clean up later, his backpack jammed into the footwell below. The twelve-year-old scowled when the tape switched over to another track. "Dude, you know this song is about drugs, don't you?"

"It is not," Jimmy said. On another day he would have been scandalized by the suggestion, but today was too bright and pleasant and sweet and wonderful and amazing. "It's about an awesome dragon who lives by the sea and has awesome adventures with an awesome kid who is his best friend."

Dean waved a small hand in arrogant dismissal. "Nope, it's all about the Mary-Jane. Trevor told me."

Trevor was Dean's new best friend at this school. Jimmy hadn't formed an opinion about the kid yet. Now he thought that he probably hated him.

All he did now was point an imperious finger at his little brother. "Driver picks the music. Shotgun shuts his cakehole." 

Dean scowled and crossed his arms over his chest, but he shut up. At least he had the good sense not to kick the dashboard or anything. Jimmy would have had him on dish duty for a week.

"What did you do today, Sammy?" he asked, turning his attention away from the bratty little brother to the good, sweet, nice little brother who never caused problems. 

Sammy leaned over into the front to tell him, holding onto the edge of Jimmy's seat with both hands and chattering in Jimmy's ear. Sounded like it had been a good school day for all of them. Jimmy flipped on the turn signal and let the words wash over him.

He waited till they got their things inside the motel room before dropping the bomb. "We're going to church this Sunday."

Both boys turned to face him, mouths hanging open and eyes wide. Dean's backpack dropped from his hand and thumped to the floor.

"What the _hell?"_

"Don't swear, Dean." Jimmy brushed past him to set his books on the kitchenette counter. "And leave those muddy shoes by the door or you'll be scraping it out of the carpet with a butter knife."

Dean did his usual muttering about "a freaking motel room" and "there's a maid and everything," but did as he was told. Sammy, though, still stood by the door, staring at Jimmy. "We've never gone to church before. Except Pastor Jim's, I mean."

Jimmy sighed and slumped, turning to face his littlest brother. It was true—the Winchester boys' religious instruction had been sadly neglected. Infrequent visits with Pastor Jim and the little he'd taught them from Sunday School lessons and parents seven years gone were no substitute. He had done his best, but that was hardly likely to be enough, was it?

"We're going now," he said.

"Why?" Dean asked, hazel-green eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You quit with that stuff like five years ago. I thought the Bible we got for you was all you needed. You said so. What made you change your mind?"

Jimmy hesitated. And he who hesitates is lost.

"You're blushing!" Dean stared unabashedly, even taking a step forward to get a better look. "You're...you're like totally red now, Jimmy! What the he...ck?"

"I want to go to church," Sam declared. He stuck out his chest a little and gave Dean a narrow look, daring him to disagree.

Dean did everything Sam wanted almost all the time. He gave the younger boy a pleading tilt of the head, then sighed. "Okay. We're going to church."

Jimmy nodded in relief. "Okay. Who's got homework?"

~*~

On Sunday morning, though, the whining started up all over again. Dad was gone on a hunting trip, which meant Jimmy was in charge. Usually that was enough for Dean, but not today. He couldn't find his nice shirt and when he did it was all wrinkly and ties were stupid and made it hard to breathe and he didn't need to comb his hair it was fine for gosh's sake and why were they out of Lucky Charms and this whole thing was stupid and it was too early and he wanted to go back to bed and Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, right, so you weren't supposed to go anywhere, just relax and _lay off with the comb, Jimmy, geez_ and church was boring anyway and this was going to blow so hard and he didn't want to sit on a hard bench for hours. And on and on and on.

Jimmy sat on the rickety table and held Dean trapped between his knees, combing his hair by brute force. He dipped the comb in the cup of water by his thigh and swept it through the gold-touched brown, again and again, slicking it down nicely despite Dean's squirming and continuous chatter of objections. Sam had already combed his own hair—he polished up bright as a new penny, that kid—and Jimmy loved him for it, he really did. And now he was even trying to polish their shoes, which was an extra level of devotion that Jimmy had never asked for or expected.

Dean yelped when Jimmy's comb caught in his hair, and Jimmy sighed and tried to gentle his touch. "Listen, Dean, it's not gonna be that bad. We won't be sitting on rock-hard pews, for one thing. This isn't like Pastor Jim's church."

"How do you _know?_ Have you been there before?"

"No, but A...a friend of mine told me all about it. It's not your regular church. For one thing, it's in a movie theater."

Dean stilled, leaning against Jimmy's thigh. "Really?"

"Yeah. It's non-denominational—not Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or Lutheran or Methodist or anything, really—and they rent a movie theater on Sunday mornings when it's not being used for movies. That's kind of cool, isn't it?"

"I don't know what those words mean," Dean said, "but yeah, I guess that's kinda cool. Can we stay for a movie later?"

"Uh. Sorry, Deaners. We don't have the extra cash right now." Jimmy hadn't yet found a job in this town, and the money Dad had left was just enough for rent and food and gas for the Tempo. "But you know what else? They'll have snacks!"

"Movie snacks?"

"No, coffee and donuts and orange juice. In the lobby before the service. My friend told me. And we don't have to bring anything, just ourselves. It's a gift for their visitors."

"Okay, that's kind of cool," Dean said grudgingly. "Think they'll have the cream-filled kind?"

Those were Dean's favorites. Jimmy smiled and carefully smoothed the hair over Dean's ear. "I don't know. I guess we'll have to go and find out."

Dean mumbled something, deliberately quiet enough that Jimmy couldn't catch it. "What was that, kid?"

"Nothing. I didn't say anything."

"Right." 

Jimmy slicked down one last cowlick, then sat back a little, signaling that Dean could finally move away. Dean hopped away the second Jimmy let up the pressure, raising a hand as if to touch his hair, then stopping himself at the moment.

"Are we good?" Jimmy asked. "Are you gonna be a gentleman, just for a few hours at my friend's church?"

Dean looked at him over his shoulder, green eyes wide and guileless. "Yeah. We're good. I'll be the classiest guy you ever saw. As long as they have the cream-filled kind."

Jimmy rolled his eyes heavenward, but accepted it for the concession it was.

By the time they headed for the car, though, Dean was dragging his feet again. He had come up with another two dozen reasons not to go, and Sammy was starting to be persuaded, too. He almost always went along with Dean when he was like this, and Jimmy couldn't really blame him much, because it was _Dean._ Even stupid freaking _Castiel_ went along with Dean most of the time, unless he judged it to be against Dean's own best interests. 

"What about wards?" Dean demanded. "We can't go hang out for hours in a place that doesn't have wards. A freaking movie theater won't be consecrated ground."

"It's still a church," Jimmy said. "So there will still be some blessing hanging around it. But yeah, I already checked it out and warded all the windows and doors, like I do for our schools and where Dad works when he finds a place. I did a holy oil prayer ritual too. It's as consecrated as it can be without decades of worship soaking into the ground."

Sammy looked at Dean sideways, checking to see if this was acceptable. Sammy wanted to go to church, Jimmy knew that—he had always had more faith than Dean, even before he found out about the existence of Castiel. But Dean was so obviously dreading the experience that Sammy now wanted to spare him. And that was just... C'mon. They were talking about going to _church,_ for Pete's sake, not camping out in a Wendigo's lair or something equally disgusting.

The two boys ended up standing by the car, as if blocking Jimmy from getting in. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, a single force arrayed against the enemy, staring up at Jimmy with the full force of their huge, pleading eyes. It was ridiculous.

Jimmy stood with his back to the motel door, having just locked it, and stood looking at his little brothers with a kind of despair. Why did they have to do this to him? Once, just once, just one freaking time, Jimmy would really, really like someone to take his side. 

Just once.

 _I'm on your side,_ Castiel said. _You should go. We should all go. It will be a good thing for all of us._

Jimmy tilted his chin up and gave Dean and Sammy the sternest John Winchester-like face he could. "That's enough. _We are going to church."_

Their eyes widened slightly, and they scrambled to get in the car.

Huh. Good to know that one worked.

~*~

This church wasn't so bad, Dean guessed. The theater carpet was kind of sticky, and the whole place smelled like stale popcorn and sweat, but Jimmy hadn't been lying about the donuts and juice. Two long folding tables stacked with the promised treats lined one side of the lobby, and Dean had spotted them and headed for that way the instant they came in the door, dragging Jimmy and Sammy behind him.

The place wasn't full at all, and there weren't a lot of old people, but not many kids either. Dean shifted from foot to foot on the squishy carpet, balancing his Bavarian-cream-filled thing on his foam cup. Sammy stood next to him, trying to be all prim and proper in his nicest outfit and polished shoes, but he couldn't help fidgeting no matter how hard he tried. He was just a little kid. 

Dean grinned and nudged Sammy with his free arm, almost making him tip over and spill his juice, but Sammy caught his balance and righted himself with an indignant _”Hey!”_

Sammy immediately looked to Jimmy, expecting back-up, but their big brother wasn't paying any attention to them at all. He was looking into the sparse crowd, eyes constantly darting here and there. He kept wiping his hands on his pants, too. Dean watched him, eyes narrowed, unsure of what to make of this.

Jimmy and Castiel didn't get nervous. Not unless something massively dangerous was going on, and usually not even then, because in times of crisis Castiel usually took over. The angel was as calm as any superhero, steady and almost blank-faced in the face of danger. The only times he got even a little upset was when it looked like Dean or Sammy or even Dad might be in trouble, and then he moved almost faster than the eye could follow and made it _stop,_ whatever it was. No matter what it was. Castiel was scary like that. And cool, very cool, in all senses of the word.

Dean still didn't get what made Jimmy insist on going to church _here,_ of all places. If he was going to start that up again, Dean would have figured on some big brick building with stained glass and a bell in a tower. Jimmy was traditional like that. But he'd wanted to come here. Because of his friend? And he was nervous, really nervous. Why? Dean didn't get it.

A couple of adults had tried to engage Jimmy in conversation, to welcome him and his little brothers to the church. When they asked if Jimmy wanted to come into the “sanctuary,” though, Jimmy just shook his head and said he was waiting for someone. 

At last, Dean saw her coming—a blonde girl about Jimmy's age, followed by a younger girl with sandy gold hair and a sour expression. The older girl's face lit up when she saw them standing there, and Dean flicked his eyes over in time to see Jimmy's face light up in response. It was...blinding, almost. Jimmy didn't smile like that, not ever. He didn't _grin,_ it just wasn't in him. But he sure was grinning now.

The girl had been walking quickly, but now she slowed down, ducking her head, still smiling, and made a beeline straight for Jimmy. “Hi, Jimmy,” she said, almost breathless. She spared barely a glance for Dean and Sammy, preferring to stare at Jimmy.

And Jimmy was doing the same, watching her like there was no one else in the room. “Hi, Amelia.”

“Hi,” she said again.

“Hi,” he said back.

Oh, _God._ Dean almost choked on his delicious donut, which was a real shame. Oh, God, he _liked_ her. It all made sense now.

“Jimmy,” Dean said, brushing Jimmy's sleeve with the side of his donut. A little glaze slid off onto the pristine cloth and that was too bad, but the cause was worthy. “Hey, Jimmy. Pay attention to us.”

Jimmy looked down at him, a quick glance, too fast to realize what Dean had done with his donut. “Oh. Amelia, these are my brothers, Dean and Samuel.”

“Sammy,” Sammy said.

“Oh. Nice to meet you.” Amelia ducked back a little and pulled on the younger girl's arm, forcing her forward. “This is my sister, Deirdre. She's thirteen. That's about your age, right, Dean?”

Deirdre scowled at them all indiscriminately. Dean stared back with wide eyes. She was...really pretty. _Really_ pretty. Maybe Jimmy was on to something with this family of girls.

“Nice to meet you,” Deirdre said. Dean had never heard anything more sarcastic in his life.

Oh yeah. She was definitely Dean's kind of girl. Or she would be, if Dean knew what his kind of girl was. Maybe Deirdre could help him figure it out.

“Let's go into the sanctuary, okay?” Amelia suggested, pointing the way toward Theater Two. “Dad's going to start the service soon, and we have a live worship band this week!”

Oh great. That meant even more of Jimmy's super-boring Jesus music. Dean sighed and dragged his feet, but followed the group when Jimmy's hand on his elbow threatened to dislodge his juice. 

This was going to suck. A lot.

~*~

Jimmy didn't know any of the modern “praise” music, and he found most of it very repetitious, dull, and bland. He didn't blame Dean for squirming in his seat, bored and restless, though Sam stared wide-eyed at the three-piece band on the movie theater's narrow stage and Deirdre at least hummed along, bobbing her head desultorily but with a modicum of sincerity. Amelia, though...she seemed transported by the music, lifting her arms and swaying back and forth, eyes closed and face radiant in worship. Jimmy missed a lot of the words on the distant projector, more interested in watching Amelia's face. She was so incredibly beautiful. (And he could follow the songs well enough without looking, anyway, the words uniformly predictable, the musical progression almost too easy to figure out after a lifetime of loving hymns and folk songs.) 

He started to sink into the familiarity of the Sunday service, fundamentally identical to hundreds he had attended as a child, no matter how this church tried to embrace “contemporary” and “non-traditional.” Amelia's father, Andrew Graves, was the pastor, and he spoke from familiar passages and never strayed into the controversial or profound. It was all right; Jimmy didn't mind. Simple was nice, sometimes. It was kind of funny how Pastor Andrew kept using movies and TV shows for his illustrations, though. Sometimes Jimmy thought he was kind of stretching, but it was interesting to listen to.

Inside him, Castiel's presence began to calm too, despite how he nearly constantly shivered with a nameless, useless anxiety and sense of urgency. Castiel could never be still, never be quiet, not even when Jimmy himself desperately needed peace and rest. Castiel was always thinking about the future, trying to push his senses outward in ways he was no longer capable of, trying to rebuild the Grace long ago fractured and mangled by the claws of a demon. He was always trying to escape the frail prison that Jimmy's body had become for him. It hurt and frustrated them both, yet the angel never stopped trying.

Sometimes, in the strangest, most unsettling dreams Jimmy had ever experienced, Castiel tried to fly. It always ended in a rending crash, the two of them awake and panting, staring at the ceiling and clenching the sheets in their fists, sometimes with a trickle of blood painting Jimmy's upper lip. It hurt and it was stupid but Castiel couldn't help it.

It turned out that having a wounded angel inside of you was kind of like being a jar full of broken shards of glass that glowed hot and bright and painful as the sun. They rubbed up against each other constantly, they shared too much, and it was intensely uncomfortable for them both. But there was nothing either of them could do to change it.

But now, as the band played one of the few hymns in their setlist and all the people in the theater sang along, Castiel settled, bit by bit, into the contours of Jimmy's spirit. _Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control..._ Without looking hard at all, Jimmy could see Castiel's bright, confusing memories of heaven, of his brethren, of raising his voice in songs of praise to God the Father with a hundred thousand other angels. The memory was awash in peace and harmony like nothing anyone on earth could ever imagine. It was too much for Jimmy to look at, overwhelming to his young, human mind, and he shrank back from it mentally. After a moment Castiel noticed his discomfort and shielded him as best he could, but it was impossible for them to truly keep secrets from each other.

The memory was beautiful, indescribably gorgeous, but a rush of melancholy poured over them both. It reminded Jimmy of his own memories of his parents, a time in his life now tinted gold in his mind, impossible and gone. Neither he nor Castiel could ever go back. Their lives were here now. They were Winchesters.

A demon had started this, killing Jimmy's parents, shredding Castiel's grace. But they had chosen this, too, in the end. Dean and Sam and John...they belonged to Castiel and Jimmy now, and both were determined to do whatever it took to protect this little broken family no matter what it cost them.

The spell of momentary peace had shattered, though the band continued to play and the people sang on. Even Sammy sang, knowing the words to this one from seven years of living with Jimmy, and Dean reluctantly nodded his head and tapped his foot. A shudder passed through them both, from Castiel to Jimmy, and the human sat up straighter in his seat.

_What is it?_

_It's...nothing. I thought I sensed..._

_What?_

_Never mind. It's gone now. My senses are far from reliable, in any case._

After the service, the five of them stood in the aisle, talking. Dean was trying to flirt with Deirdre, which Jimmy did his best not to watch, even out of the corner of his eye. He had seen in Castiel's memories of the future the man Dean would become, almost preternaturally handsome and very charming to many of the women he met, but the kid wasn't there yet. He had only recently gotten over the “girls have cooties” stage. He seemed to be very, very over it now, though.

“What—what are you doing after church?” Jimmy asked Amelia, trying not to get his hopes up. Maybe they could just...go for a walk, or something. A walk would be great. He just wanted to be with her.

She smiled at him the way she always did, eyes crinkling up, cheeks rosy-bright. “We're going to help Dave pack up the drum kit and take it back to Grace Baptist on the other side of town. Dale and Margie will take care of their guitar and bass, but the drum kit is a pain and we can't leave it here.”

“We'd love to help,” Jimmy offered immediately. Without turning his head, he saw Dean's outraged glare. “Okay, _I_ would love to help, and my brothers will come along _because they have to.”_ He glared at Dean in return, moving only his eyes so that he still faced Amelia.

“I'd love to help, too,” Sammy said, and Jimmy gave him a smile. Sammy was a such a sweetheart, most of the time. It was hard to believe that he had demon blood swimming in his veins.

They ended up helping with most of the clean-up, packing up the music and sound equipment, carrying the folding tables out to someone's van, running a vacuum over the lobby carpet for crumbs. Then they followed behind the van in their car to the baptist church to help unpack. And Dean could just sit in the car and wait if he was going to be such a snot about it, that was all Jimmy had to say.

Some of the parishioners at Grace Baptist were still standing around in small groups at the front of the building, chatting. Jimmy's eyes scanned over them reflexively as he walked toward the back, the kick drum in its case bouncing off his leg. And then it was his turn to shudder.

_What is it?_ Castiel asked, sharp and urgent.

_N-nothing. I thought I saw...but it couldn't have been._

_Are you sure? Be sure._

Jimmy halted and turned to stare at the church-goers, scanning each face. It wasn't there now. _He_ wasn't there now. It was just a memory, a random firing of synapses, that was all.

_I'm sure. I didn't see anything._

Castiel let it drop, as Jimmy had let the other matter drop back at Amelia's church. But they could not keep secrets from each other. Both knew what the other had thought he'd seen, thought he'd sensed.

But it couldn't have been. Not at church. Not on consecrated ground.


	5. Book Two: These Wandering Blues (Part Two)

The weeks followed in similar pattern. John found them a house on Michigan Avenue, not far from school, and sometimes the brothers walked. John in this life did his best to keep his promise to Jimmy and Castiel, making sure to always keep his sons as his first priority. The first time around, Jimmy figured, they had probably never moved out of the motel. John probably hustled pool and cheated at cards to keep them in money instead of finding work at a construction site. They probably spent only weeks here instead of months. The Winchesters still moved around a lot, following the hunt, but Dean might get a chance to graduate high school this time. He liked school, liked making friends, while the Dean in Castiel's memories had always spoken disparagingly of such matters. And this John would never think of missing Christmas, not even for the most important hunt he'd ever come across.

He could afford it, now that he had Castiel—and even Jimmy—to back him up and help him out. The other John had been alone and desperate, unwilling or unable to trust the few hunters he met who could have supported him, flailing for a way to protect his boys from the monster that had killed his wife, not to mention all the other creatures in the night. This John had an angel on his side, and his life was better for it.

All of their lives were better now. Except for Jimmy's. At least he assumed so—the one thing Castiel had managed to hide from him was what Jimmy's life would be like if none of this had happened. Castiel had excised it from it own memory somehow, saying that it would only cause Jimmy pain and be of no use in stopping the coming Apocalypse. Jimmy knew, though, that without Castiel his life would be better.

He tried not to resent the angel. It wasn't his fault, not really. Not...entirely. Sometimes it was hard, though.

Like the time Jimmy went grocery shopping at the corner market down the street. He was just there for milk and eggs on this crisp Saturday morning, planned to make French toast for his brothers when they finally dragged themselves out of bed. This early on a weekend, the shop was all but deserted, cool under the fluorescent lights. The only shoppers were Jimmy and an elderly lady kneeling by the milk case pulling out every single gallon to find the one with the most distant expiration date. The teenage clerk at the counter watched over them with a dull, sleepy gaze, chin propped on one hand, occasionally yawning. Jimmy got his eggs, then stood a few feet back from the lady, trying not to fidget while she took her time with the milk.

She was humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers," Jimmy recognized, and he smiled gently and began to hum along without realizing it, his gaze softening and his arm falling limp at his side, no longer fidgeting. That was one of the nice things about this part of central Illinois. So many people knew the hymns.

The lady finally found her jug of milk and laboriously began to replace all the others. Jimmy set his eggs aside and knelt down to help her with a swift, "Here, let me get that for you."

She grinned and sat back, letting him work. "Oh, what a polite young man! You don't see much of that around these days. No, you certainly don't."

Jimmy gave her a little smile and ducked his head, continuing to work. She reminded him of... She reminded him of something, someone. It was nice.

He finished with the milk and held on to the last jug for himself, then pulled himself to his feet and gave the lady a hand up. She grunted as he pulled her up, holding his hand with a crushing grip. Once straight, she stared at him, eyebrows wrinkled. "Oh my... Do I know your parents, sonny?"

He stared back at her, eyes suddenly wide. "N-no, I don't think so."

"Who are they? You certainly do look familiar. Are you sure I don't know you from somewhere? Maybe it's your grandparents."

Mrs. Kriegel. She had taught him Sunday School when he was in third grade. Jimmy took a step back, suddenly afraid, though he didn't know why. "No...I just moved here with my dad and my two brothers. My father is John Winchester...I don't have a mom."

"But I could have sworn..." Mrs. Kriegel squinted at him, then fumbled for the glasses on the chain around her neck, lifting them to her eyes to get a better look at him. Jimmy backed another two steps away. "I'm sorry, young man, but you do look an awful lot like... Why, you look like little Jimmy Novak, gone these many years."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. My name is Winchester." Jimmy turned and hurried toward the clerk, in a rush to get out and get away. Mrs. Kriegel mumbled behind him, stuck in old memories, and he just wanted to leave.

He didn't want to think. He didn't want to remember. Jimmy barely gave the clerk time to ring him up, just shoved a few dollars at him and blurted, “Keep the change!” He hurried down the sidewalk as fast as he dared without danger of breaking the eggs, his mind almost blank with terror. 

He didn't want to remember.

But he did, oh he did. He remembered everything that happened that night. It had been an ordinary evening, the Novaks after dinner, Dad reading his thick magazines full of big words, Mom working on her crochet project. She had been making a baby blanket, blue and pink and yellow, little squares... Jimmy had been doing his homework, dawdling as he usually did, unwilling to finish and go upstairs for bed. The lamps in the living room were warm and yellow, and everything was comfortable and quiet, and Jimmy wasn't sleepy, he wasn't, he...

Jimmy rubbed the back of his wrist over his eyes, denying the tears, fingers aching from carrying the milk jug while he walked. He didn't want to remember.

 _Jimmy._

Castiel. And his voice was gentle. Castiel's voice was almost never gentle. He didn't really know how to be gentle. But he tried, for Jimmy and his brothers. For their family, he tried. 

_Jimmy. I am sorry._

“Don't be sorry!” Jimmy spat. “Don't be sorry! The world will be better because of this! We're going to keep it from ending, keep everyone safe, keep people from hurting and suffering and dying. So many people! What does it matter if my parents had to die for that to happen? What does it matter? It doesn't matter, not at all, not even a little tiny bit!”

_I am sorry, Jimmy._

A scraggly young maple stood in their front yard, and all of its leaves were red now, though not many had fallen. Dean and Sam were looking forward to raking those leaves, turning them into piles to jump into and scatter. They liked playing, they liked... Jimmy stumbled to the tree and turned to lean his back on it, scraping down to sit on the ground. He let the eggs and milk rest where they'd fallen and buried his head in his hands.

_They matter, Jimmy. You matter._

“You wouldn't have thought so, once. The first time around. I was just a tool to you then. Just a body for you to wear like a suit.”

_I was wrong._

Jimmy had felt the jolt, that night, felt something pour into him like liquid fire instantly banked to nothing. He hadn't felt anything after that, hadn't known what it was. Hadn't even thought about it, considering what happened next. But he knew now what it signified—Castiel traveling backward in time, thumping into his vessel in an earlier moment instead of carrying the older body along as he'd meant to do. All of it had been completely against his will. The angel had been injured by the journey, had been unconscious for months, and then when he woke... 

Well, it was all in the past. Or the future, whatever. Castiel was trapped in Jimmy now and they both had to deal with it.

_I never meant for this to happen, and I am sorry._

“I know,” Jimmy murmured. He knew everything Castiel felt.

But the fact remained that Castiel had brought a demon along with him on that journey back in time, and the demon had killed Jimmy's parents.

~*~

Jimmy dreamed of smoke and fire that night. He knew it wasn't one of Castiel's dreams—those were bright and confusing, unless they were of the event that had made him choose to throw himself backward in time, the final battle that ended with an adult Sam grinning with bloody teeth, Lucifer shining golden from his eyes, and adult Dean dead on the ground with intestines hanging from his gut like broken rope. No, this dream was Jimmy's, of the line of demarcation that separated one half of his childhood from the other.

It had been sudden, like a bomb. Or a war. One moment Jimmy and his parents were quiet and at peace, and then the room was full of smoke, a roaring, choking wave of smoke that was somehow a physical thing with physical power. An invisible force threw Jimmy's mother and father against the wall as he instinctively rolled under a table and covered his head, staring in horror, watching the blood burst out of his father's mouth, watching his mother scream and writhe in agony. 

Jimmy's heart thumped against his chest, loud and aching, eyes so wide they hurt. He didn't understand what was happening, he didn't know what he could do. This wasn't supposed to happen, this was never supposed to happen. "Mom!" he screamed. "Dad!"

They didn't answer him. They couldn't. Fire poured from the walls and engulfed them both, and Jimmy screamed until he couldn't scream anymore.

 _Thud._ Jimmy landed on the floor, his heart racing and his breath rushing in and out. The room around him was cool and dark, no fire, no smoke. Sweat coated his skin, rapidly cooling in the night air. In moments he would be shivering, but for now all he felt was heat. Sheets and blankets tangled around his legs like shackles, and he trembled in their grip, paralyzed and unable to free himself. 

Dream. It was just a dream.

"Jimmy?" Dean's voice from the other bed was sleepy and low. "You okay?"

 _I'm fine,_ Jimmy tried to say, but nothing came out, his throat choked and dry, scarred by ashes and fumes seven years gone.

_Castiel, take control and tell them I'm okay._

_I will not._ The angel sounded ticked off. _It is not true._

"Wha's gon' on?" Sammy's voice now, muffled on the other side of Dean in their double bed. Great. Now both of his little brothers were awake.

"I'm...okay," Jimmy choked out.

Rustling from the other bed, still sluggish and sleepy, and Dean thudded down to the floor next to him. "Aw, Jimmy..." The kid sounded sad, but not surprised.

This scene was all too familiar, really. It played out for the Winchester boys at least once or twice a month. The only question was which boy would be on the floor.

Dean helped Jimmy get untangled, grabbed his arm to help him up, pushed him into bed. It wasn't right for someone so young to be taking care of everyone around him, but Dean took to it naturally, as if there was nothing else he'd rather do... And Jimmy was too weary, too frightened, too grief-stricken to refuse his help.

Jimmy curled up on his sweat-damp pillow, shivering now, throat still clogged and dry. Dean smoothed the covers over him and patted his shoulder. "No more dreams, okay?" It was half order, half plea.

Jimmy nodded and listened to Dean climb back into his own bed.

 _No more dreams,_ Castiel echoed. But he was no more capable of shutting them out than any of the humans in the room.

~*~

When they'd been in town for a month or so, Jimmy and Castiel made the rounds. That was what Jimmy called it, anyway—revisiting all the buildings they had protected when they first moved here, refreshing the wards, saying the prayers, performing the rituals. It was what they did to keep the family safe. John kept an eye and ear on the news for monsters and ghosts, Dean made sure they all got enough to eat at every meal, Sammy worried rather too much about anyone who was away even for a few hours, and Jimmy and Castiel kept the wards.

They made the rounds on a crisp, clear Friday afternoon full of the rush of autumnal breezes and alive with the rustling of falling leaves. Sammy was with one of his study groups and Dean had something going on with friends, so Jimmy had the house to himself while John was at his job. Usually Jimmy relished such rare opportunities to be alone, but today he had work to do. They went around the house first, checking the sigils on the windows and doors and walls, painting holy oil on the lintels and praying blessings down on the Winchester family. Jimmy fell into the routine of it, as relaxed and at peace as he ever felt. No demons would touch his brothers and father here, no matter what had happened in the past. Here were allowed only goodness and light...and the busted-up angel who rode inside Jimmy's skin.

Next, Jimmy drove to the middle school. He was the most thorough with this building, as it was where Dean and Sammy spent most of their time. So many windows and doors, so many oddly shaped corners and walkways. Castiel painted the symbols with their hands, carefully tracing the marks already made, and Jimmy hummed with their voice in absent hymns and prayers half-spoken, half-silent. On the edges of dulled angelic senses they could feel echoes of their little brothers' presence: Sammy's voice eagerly answering a teacher's question, Dean's sticky fingers trading desserts with another child at lunch. It made Jimmy smile to know that they were so very much themselves, his brothers, Dean and Sam, young and innocent and free of cares unfit to childhood.

Jimmy lit an incense stick and waved it slowly back and forth as he walked around the school, chanting a Greek home blessing and invoking the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. It wasn't quite authentic—the incense wasn't in a censer, he hadn't brought the other materials along, and Jimmy wasn't a Greek Orthodox priest—but the blessing was worth saying even so. The chant rolled off his tongue in mellifluous syllables, round and low and powerful. He'd always liked the sound of the Greek language.

_Let us pray to the Lord. Lord have mercy. God our Savior, the True Light, Who was baptized in the Jordan by the Prophet John, and Who did deign to enter under the roof-tree of Zacchaeus, bringing salvation unto him and unto his house: do You, the same Lord, keep safe also from harm those who dwell herein; grant to them Your blessing, purification and bodily health, and all their petitions that are unto salvation and Life everlasting; for blessed are You, as also Your Father Who is from everlasting, and Your All; Holy, Good and Life; creating Spirit, both now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen._

Unfortunately, the sound of his own voice was just loud enough that Jimmy was not aware of the other young, murmuring voices until he rounded a corner and all but ran right into them.

"Holy mackerel!" he yelled, falling back and throwing up his arm to cover his eyes. That was the hand holding the incense stick, though, so he got a nose and mouth full of thick, pungent smoke along with his shock and consternation. The thread of the blessing completely deserted him, and even Castiel seemed to be flailing inside his head, though he quickly regained control, his spirit radiating waves of pure amusement.

The image was burned in his brain of his little brother and his friend's little sister leaning against the wall beside the dumpster, their lips locked together, and there was no getting rid of it. Once seen, some things could not be unseen.

"My eyes!" he squeaked. "Dean, you're too young!"

 _Actually, I believe his first kiss is happening somewhat later in the timeline this time around,_ Castiel said, and oh, his amusement wasn't helping a thing.

 _Shut up,_ Jimmy responded with all the maturity he could muster at the moment.

"Jimmy?" Dean's voice squawked in outrage, too. "What the heck are you doing here? Go away!"

Deirdre made a noise that Jimmy thought must be what teenage eye-rolling sounded like. "This is _stupid."_

Jimmy lowered his arm far enough to see that Dean and Deirdre were still standing there, staring at him, way too little space between them. Then he raised his arm again and turned around to flee. "I'll see you at home!" he called over his shoulder.

"Your brother's kind of a prude, isn't he?" Deirdre's voice floated behind him as he trotted away.

 _What about the blessing ritual?_ Castiel asked.

_We'll finish it later._

_But what about..._

_We'll finish it later, Castiel! Just...shut up!_

Yep, the angel was still vastly amused. Jimmy would be ticked at him if he could spare the energy.

~*~

Sometimes, in some things, usually very small, Jimmy got what he wished for. They took walks together after church almost every Sunday, Jimmy, Amelia, sometimes with their siblings and sometimes alone. After they took the equipment back to Grace Baptist Church, sometimes they walked around the neighborhood there. Sometimes the Graves family invited the Winchester boys back to their home for Sunday dinner, and sometimes when John was gone they went, and they walked. Sometimes there were "youth group" activities around town with the tiny church, the group consisting of little more than their two families and perhaps two or three other teenagers. At school Amelia had other friends, small social groups Jimmy still felt no part of, but these Sunday walks were just for them.

Jimmy lost track of time that way, walking with Amelia, talking of almost everything under the sun, laughing, joking, enjoying, letting crisp autumn air burn in his throat and nose and puffing it out in dragon-fumes of steam. Feeling human. Alive. If Dean and Deirdre weren't there to whine about wanting to go back, if Sammy wasn't there to tire and insist on a piggy-back ride, he could lose all sense of time's passage until evening shadows began to stretch across the pavement and he glanced up to see just how far the sun had fallen in the sky. Castiel was silent in his mind, indulgent, for once unconcerned with schedules and forever looking forward to what came next. For the first time in this half of his life, Jimmy had a friend, and the angel who lived inside him was content. If Amelia noticed when their walks went on too long, she didn't mention it. Perhaps she was indulging him, too.

It was his own fault, then, for not paying attention to where they wandered, for not realizing where they were, what street they were passing down. Until suddenly, one gray, cool Sunday evening soon after Halloween, Jimmy looked up and realized where his feet had taken him. He froze, breath catching in his throat, eyes widening until they burned. Castiel had been somnolent in their mind, all but soothed to a slumber he never needed by the familiar contentment of the walk, but now he startled and bristled, fierce and bright, a pulsing of angry light behind Jimmy's eyelids. He knew where they were, too, and if ever an angel of the Lord could hate and despise a place, a single point on the map, Castiel hated this one.

Amelia had been talking about something...music, movies, Jimmy no longer remembered...and now her voice faltered and trailed away. "What... Jimmy? What are you looking at?"

Jimmy remembered this house. He remembered his first day here, the social worker's hand on his shoulder pushing him gently away, setting him adrift in a wide, trackless sea that she didn't know hid a shark in its depths. He remembered the dread filling his belly as he reluctantly left the safety of the school bus and stepped toward the door, knowing what would greet him inside. He remembered awkward meals, his foster mother trying to soothe and keep her husband happy. He remembered how it never worked, not really, not for long.

He remembered the first time Mr. Baker had hit him. How shocking it was, how much it had hurt. He had been frozen then, too, a nine-year-old boy completely unable to move, paralyzed by terror. Later he learned that that was the best way to deal with it, to just stand still and take it, because it was worse if Mr. Baker had to chase him. Once it started, it didn't stop, not until Mr. Baker was done.

It never stopped.

 _Remember also your last day here,_ Castiel said. His light pulsed in Jimmy's mind, fighting to spread outward, to warm and soothe and heal. He couldn't do it, not really, not all the way, but he never stopped trying. _Remember when I woke, when we met, when you trusted me. Remember how I helped you and how we escaped. You are not alone, and that foul excuse for a human being will never harm you again. I swear it, Jimmy. Remember that, too._

"Jimmy? What's going on? Are you okay?"

Amelia's hand slipped into his. They had never held hands before.

Something snapped, allowing him to move again. Jimmy looked down at their linked hands and swallowed against the dryness of his throat, trying to find something to say. Her hand was small and soft and warm. It fit into Jimmy's palm as if it belonged there, young, tender fingers sliding around his palm, covering the tiny scars, the gun calluses. He still couldn't speak, tongue too large and thick.

He slipped backward in his mind, pushing Castiel forward, though it meant that he could no longer feel her so immediately. The loss hurt, but he needed to reassure her more than he needed to be reassured. _Tell her I'm okay._

Castiel flared defiantly, but moved forward to take control. "I used to live here," he said.

 _That's not what I said!_ Jimmy flailed, panicked. _Don't tell her about this!_

 _You are not okay,_ Castiel responded, fierce in his truth. _I will not lie to her._

"In Pontiac?" Amelia asked, eyebrows bent in puzzlement.

Castiel nodded Jimmy's chin toward the house. "There." 

Amelia looked into his eyes, trying to understand. Her hand gripped his, tugging it closer, and she wrapped her other hand around it, too. "It's not a happy memory? You seem so...upset."

Castiel looked at the house for a moment, and Jimmy felt a brief flash of the angel's own unpleasant memories of the place. The confusion of waking from unconsciousness inside a younger body, his horror and guilt when he realized what had happened, his pain and sorrow when he couldn't fully heal Jimmy's body, couldn't make everything better, couldn't do what an angel was supposed to do. How alone and helpless and desperate he had felt. 

The angel looked back to Amelia, regarding her gravely. "Something bad happened to me there."

Amelia looked at the house, staring for a long, tense moment as if memorizing everything about it. Then she looked back to them. "Will you tell me?"

 _No!_ Jimmy cried. _I don't want her to know!_

"Someday," Castiel said. "Someday I'll tell you. You deserve to know."

_Don't you dare. You stupid freak, don't you dare! It's not your place—you can't do that to me._

_Someday you will tell her yourself,_ Castiel said, infuriatingly calm and cool, certain. _It is a human thing to need the support of those you love. And you are still very human, Jimmy Winchester._

Jimmy had been preparing to push forward, to take control whether Castiel would let him or not, but he froze again at the mention of that one word. _Wait, you... Love?_

_You love her._

"Jimmy?" Amelia asked, tightening her grip on his hand, and Jimmy looked into her eyes and knew it was true. His eyes watered, whether from holding them so wide in the cold air for so long or from something else, he couldn't have said.

He barely felt Castiel slipping backward, giving control back to him. "Sorry," he whispered through his tight throat, hating how weak and small he felt.

She let go of his hand, and he instantly missed the warmth of her touch. But it was only so she could lean forward and wrap her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder and holding him close, tight, safe. Jimmy trembled.

He blew out a breath and ducked his head, hiding against her blonde locks, and he hugged her back. For a long time, that was all he could do.

Amelia didn't seem to mind.

~*~

“You wanna go to church with us, Dad?” Dean poked his father across the table with his spoon, trying to get his attention.

John blinked and yawned, managing to glance up from his coffee. He had been up late the night before, checking out a possible haunting at St. Mary's Cemetery. “Uhhh, no thanks, sport.”

Dean made a face of disappointment, but went back to his cereal without comment. It wasn't like Jimmy hadn't asked him before. John never wanted to go.

“Since when did you like going to church?” John looked at Dean, squinting, peered from him to Jimmy and Sammy. “I thought this was your big brother's idea and he was just dragging you along.”

Dean shrugged. “It's not that bad. I like watching Jimmy blush his face off when he's around Amelia. 'Sfun.”

Jimmy choked and kicked him under the table, and Sammy laughed, banging his fist next to his bowl hard enough to make milk spurt up. “Yeah, it's awesome! Jimmy and Amelia, sittin' in a tree, kay eye ess ess eye en gee...”

“Shut _up!”_ Jimmy poked him, too, not very hard because Sammy was still little and didn't really get it. “Stop singing that!”

“Why?” Dean asked, wide-eyed with exaggerated innocence. “You know it's true. You and Amelia are in looooovvvvvvveeeeee...”

Jimmy tackled him out of his chair. Breakfast was pretty much a complete loss.

John watched them get ready for a church with something like an indulgent smile, or at least as close as John Winchester ever got to an indulgent smile. As usual, Jimmy had to wrestle Dean to the floor to comb his hair, and Sammy was gallantly and heroically above it all. There were the usual arguments about which shirt was better (“But _other_ people in that church don't dress up all fancy, Jimmy!” _“We are not other people!”_ ) and whether the shoes were shiny enough (“Oh my go...sh, Sammy, leave me alone!” “...Yeah, actually, that's probably good.”), and John just let them do their business.

Jimmy sent Sam and Dean out to the car and checked himself in the mirror one more time. He turned around to find John standing right behind him and just about jumped out of his skin, and John raised his hands, his face apologetic. “Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to startle you.”

Jimmy pressed a hand to his chest, trying to settle his heart. “'Sokay. Just...wasn't expecting you to be there.”

“Yeah.” John tucked his hands in his pockets. His eyes were big and brown and sympathetic. “So you really like this girl, huh?”

Jimmy looked down at his shoes, scuffing it on the floor. “Yeah.” He looked back up. “It's not a big deal or anything.”

“No, of course not. It's just...I'm glad you're...I'm glad you like it here, is what I'm saying. You don't usually...I'm just glad you like it here.” John's broad shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“Yeah.” Jimmy looked at his shoes again. He never knew how to act around John, his adopted dad, one of the people Castiel had come back in time to protect.

John waggled his eyebrows, giving him a grin that looked way too much like Dean's. “So, have you asked her out yet?”

Jimmy squirmed and took a step toward the door. “No, not really. I mean...um... We go for walks. With Dean and Sam and her little sister, and um. Sometimes just the two of us."

"Well, that's a good start. But what about dinner? A movie? The school dance?"

"I don't...I don't know if she even dates. Some of those Christian girls don't, and...”

“Have you asked her what she thinks?”

Jimmy stared at him.

John chuckled. “I guess it's easier to hang out when you have a bunch of siblings around, huh. I'm glad Dean and Sammy are being so kind to you.” He paused for a moment, then pulled one of his hands out of his pocket, now holding his wallet. “Here...here's some money. Take them out for ice cream after church. All of 'em.” 

Jimmy stared at the twenty-dollar bill in his hand. “Dad, you don't have to...”

“I know. I want to.” John touched his shoulder, hesitantly at first, just a few fingers, then covering it with his warm, broad palm when Jimmy didn't flinch away. “Listen, Jimmy. I'm sorry I kept ignoring you those years ago when you kept asking again and again if we could go to church. I know it was important to you and I just...let it slip by. I was...I was angry then, at God, at everything. I felt like He'd let me down when Mary died and even you and Castiel coming to me like that... Well, it wasn't enough to convince me otherwise, I guess.”

Jimmy tried to look back him, tried to meet his earnest gaze, but his eyes were getting all blurry and he had to look down again.

“Look, son. I was stupid and selfish. I ignored you every time, and eventually you quit asking. I'm sorry I did that to you. You deserve to go to church if that's what you want. You deserve to have a relationship with a girl and get to know people outside our screwed-up little family. I'm sorry I let your desires fall through the cracks like that, and I hope you can make up the time now.”

“I...” Jimmy gulped. “Thanks, Dad.”

Dad held his shoulder in a strong, gentle grip, gave it a little shake, then let go. “Have fun with your friends. Ask Amelia about that date. Maybe over ice cream.”

“Okay.” Jimmy shook his head, dazed, and made his way to the door. His hand on the knob, he turned and caught his father's eyes again. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you still mad at God?”

Dad's mouth quirked in a crooked little grin, small but there. “Not anymore. He sent me an angel. No, actually... He sent me two of 'em.”

“Thank you.”

Jimmy stuffed the bill in his pocket and went out to meet his brothers.

~*~

They never got that ice cream.


	6. Book Two: These Wandering Blues (Part Three)

"What was that?" Deirdre asked, her voice starting to rise in hysterics. "Who was that? Was that a person? It looked like a person! It wasn't, was it? How could it have been a person?"

Amelia wrapped her arms around her sister and pulled her close. Her face was pale and set in terror or determination. Jimmy wanted to reassure her, wanted to embrace her the way she was embracing Deirdre, but he couldn't. He couldn't do a thing. Castiel had taken over and Jimmy had let him.

Castiel prowled the borders of the rec room at Grace Baptist Church, inscribing wards of protection on every wall, every window, every doorjamb, digging the blade of Jimmy's boot knife into the paint and wood with strength born of anxiety, dread, and the overwhelming need to protect. That person... _it_ was out there, and it was going to come back. They had to be ready.

Sammy knelt on the floor in the middle of the room, near where Amelia and Deirdre huddled. He counted out the amulets and charms the Winchesters had had in their pockets, laying them on the floor in Sammy's own system of tidy organization. There wasn't much. You weren't supposed to need this stuff on consecrated ground.

"It was a demon," the little boy said. He spoke with a calmness and clarity that Jimmy recognized must sound chilling and horrific to the two girls. "The eyes turned black, right? Demon."

"Okay, I got some!" Dean returned from a storage room somewhere, hauling an armful of water bottles. "Good thing those Baptists like to stock up. Will this be enough, Castiel?"

Castiel glanced up from his work long enough to nod.

"What...what did you call him?" Amelia asked.

Deirdre was still struggling. "But it can't...it can't be a demon! That's Mr. Baker, he's the one who told us Grace would lend us their equipment, he's the one who, who... He can't be a demon, he can't!"

"Sorry, sweetheart," Dean said, dumping his water bottles next to his little brother and the two girls. "He definitely is."

"But Mr. Baker is a Christian! The devil can't come in your heart when Jesus is in there!"

"Sorry," Sammy said, picking out two amulets from the small pile. "It doesn't always work like that. Here, put these on."

He gave one to each girl. They stared at the strange little necklaces, silent in shock.

Castiel approached them, still holding the knife in his fist. He had a few more symbols to carve. "This man claimed to be a Christian, you say? I highly doubt that he's sincere."

Amelia stared up at him, her eyes round and blue. Jimmy ached for her, but there was nothing he could do to make it better. "Why do you say that?"

Castiel's lip curled in a righteous sneer, alien on his face, yet Jimmy knew that the angel felt true loathing for this man. "He is the same one who severely abused Jimmy Novak for more than half a year in 1983 and '84. And he was not possessed by a demon then."

This was not the way Jimmy would have chosen to tell Amelia that he had been abused as a child. Or that he was adopted and Winchester wasn't his real last name. Or that he had an angel inside him. But, well, a lot of Jimmy's choices seemed to get taken away from him.

"...Jimmy?" Amelia echoed. "You?"

Castiel nodded and put a hand to his chest. "Jimmy Novak, now Jimmy Winchester, is my vessel. I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord."

"No, no, no, no no no no," Deirdre said, quietly at first, then rising to a wail. "No, no, no, this can't be happening!" Her hands lifted to frame her face, fingernails digging into her temples. "This can't be real, this can't be... It's all stories, just stories!"

At this Amelia jerked in shock yet again, pulling back from her sister.

Jimmy sighed inwardly. _Castiel, please let me talk to them._

Castiel was weak enough that he could have wrenched back control on his own if he really wanted to, but the angel acquiesced graciously, bowing his head as he receded back into Jimmy's mind. Jimmy raised his head and knelt down beside the girls, carefully setting the knife aside. "Amelia, it's me."

She just sat there, frozen.

"Amelia, please look at me."

Amelia turned to face him, eyes and face blank, empty.

"Amelia." He lifted a hand and caressed her pale, smooth cheek, something he would have been terrified to do only an hour before. That didn't matter now, nothing mattered but this. "Amelia, you believe the Bible, don't you?"

She breathed, in and out, struggling for balance. "I do but... Jimmy, this is so insane..."

"Castiel is telling the truth. He's an angel. He's been inside me since I was ten years old."

"Jimmy, Jimmy, that's _crazy..."_ She was shaking hard now, unable to believe.

He shook, too, as desperate to convince her as she was to deny it. "You believe in God and Satan, don't you? Why not demons and angels?"

"But, you know..." She flapped a hand, the other still fisted in her sister's shirt. "I thought, invisible forces, powers and principalities. I didn't think...I didn't think they were so..."

"So what?" he asked, as gently as he knew.

"So _real,"_ she admitted, and the tears began to fall.

He brushed her cheek with his thumb, catching her tears. Then he leaned forward to kiss the other cheek and tasted them, too. "Amelia, I... Castiel says I love you. I'm pretty sure he's right. Will you trust me?"

She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, steadying under his hand. "I...I will. I do."

"All right." He sat back, picked up the knife again. "I'm letting Castiel take control now so he can fight the demon. But I'm still in here, Amelia. I'm still Jimmy."

Amelia nodded. She put on the anti-possession charm Sammy had given her and helped Deirdre do the same.

One door to go. Castiel leaned on it, carving into the painted metal and scoring the marks as deep as he could. They just needed to buy a little more time, needed to figure out some way to get a Devil's Trap marked on the floor. They had no paint, no markers, no chalk, no salt, nowhere to get any of those items, and the knife was now dull and almost impossible to cut with. Castiel persevered, though, aware that the locks on this door would never hold against the strength of a demon. 

It had trapped them in one of the least defensible places Castiel could imagine, and they had never anticipated danger on consecrated ground. Maybe a church's rec room didn't count, then. Castiel would have to keep that in mind for later. He could hear Dean and Sammy behind him, chanting over the holy water.

 _Slam!_ Something heavy hit the door on the other side, jolting Castiel's slim teenage body, and a grinning face appeared at the window. Mr. Baker, the demon, both and one together. Castiel pushed back with all the strength in his young legs, grimly determined to finish this last warding mark. One more downslash, then the crossing line...

"Hello, little angel!" the deep voice boomed, barely muffled by the door at all.

The door burst inward, broken metal flying from the shattered locks, and Castiel was thrust backward into the room to land in an undignified sprawl. He leaped to his feet in one motion and crouched there, snarling. He held the knife in a defensive position between himself and the demon. "Stay back, foul imp!"

Booming laughter, ugly and wrong, defiling this poor sanctuary. "Oh, how you amuse me, little angel! Did you really think I wouldn't find you? Did you really think you would be _safe?_ And oh, the pure impudence of you, coming back here of all places! What else could you possibly have expected?"

It approached, moving sideways along the wall and toward Castiel, and Castiel circled, keeping himself between the demon and the children. "I expected you to know better than to meddle in the affairs of a servant of the High One, imp. You are far out of your depth. Leave now before I see reason to destroy you where you stand."

"Oh ho, pretty words, little angel." The demon grinned, two steps closer, gesturing as if to swipe at him. Castiel raised the knife, but the demon did not come near enough for him to slice at it. "What angel uses such puny mortal tools? If you were truly a servant of the High One, as you claim, you would need nothing but your hand and your righteousness to send me back to Hell."

Castiel looked into the black eyes and tightened his mouth into a thin line. "Come closer and say that again."

Jimmy trembled inside their shared body, buffeted nearly into unconsciousness by the terror of being faced with not only a demon, but the man who had torn him to pieces for months on end when he was too small and helpless to defend himself. Still, he had to crow a little at Castiel's words. _Nice bluff, Castiel. Man, if I wasn't me, I would totally believe you._

But the demon only smiled, low and slow and feral. "You can't fool me, little Castiel. I know how much power you hold, and it is pitiful." And he thrust his hand into his jacket, the nice Sunday jacket worn by Mr. Baker that let him blend into the Sunday Baptist crowd and convince them that he was one of them. Castiel caught his breath at the glimmer of light thus revealed, and when the demon pulled his hand back out, he held a vial half-full of beautiful, shining grace.

"You see that, little angel? I have a part of you. Did you never wonder why your grace was so broken and useless? It was because I kept some of it all for myself, and oh, what a pretty thing it is."

_"Exorcizamus te!"_

Castiel gasped at Dean's young voice right in his ear, and the demon shouted, steaming from the entire bottle of holy water Dean had flung at him. "Dean, get back!"

Castiel thrust out his arm, pushing Dean behind him, and just in time. The demon leapt at them both and drove them to the floor. It yelled, writhing as Castiel buried the boot knife in the body's heart. It would not kill the demon, but Jimmy would never have to fear this man again, and Castiel was fiercely glad.

 _"Omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii..."_ Sammy called, continuing the exorcism, and over him Castiel could hear the two girls shakily reciting a psalm.

All of it helped. Not enough to defeat the demon, not nearly enough, but it helped. The foul thing found its feet again and reeled back, growling and wiping at its eyes, trying to get rid of the water. Castiel got to his feet and pulled Dean up, then pushed the boy back once again. "Stay with the others," he ordered breathlessly, though he knew better than to expect Dean to obey.

"No way, dude, I got more holy water." Dean stuck a bottle into Castiel's hand, still holding more for himself. It was a superior replacement for the knife, though it would not help Castiel finish that last warding symbol.

"Hey, you yellow-bellied freak!" Dean yelled at the demon. "Give Cas back his mojo! Why don't you pick on someone your own size instead of a bunch of little kids? Freakin' _coward!"_

It was the first time this Dean had shortened his name to the diminutive. Castiel was inexplicably warmed.

"Little idiot!" the demon snarled. "I'll kill you too!"

"Not today," said another voice, and a mighty punch drove the demon ten steps back, crashing into the wall.

John Winchester. He stood between the demon and his sons, one hand in a fist, the other reaching back toward Castiel and Dean.

"Dad!" Dean's voice was effervescent with shock and delight.

John turned his head far enough to give them a grin. "Thought I'd come drag you boys away so Jimmy could have ice cream just with Amelia. I know it's sneaky, but sometimes you gotta make that first date happen. Glad I thought of it. Give me that holy water."

Dean handed it over gladly, and John stalked toward the demon, shaking the bottle menacingly. "Give my boy back what you stole from him, and _maybe_ I'll just send you back to Hell instead of killing you right here and now."

The demon leaned on the wall, one hand pressed over its jaw where John had punched it. "You can't kill me. You don't have the tools, don't even know what they are. You don't even have the sigils written to catch me!"

"Oh, you think so?" John tilted his head, smiling slow and mean. "I have an angel on my side. An angel from the future. An angel from the future who happens to know everything I need to know to defeat everything that comes after me. You really think we wouldn't have taken advantage of that? You really think we wouldn't have gathered all those tools by now? Seven _years_ later? Oh, you are the dumbest, slimiest, _stupidest_ little piss-ant ever to crawl out of Hell, aren't you?"

In a mockery of the demon sliding its hand into its jacket and drawing out of the vial of Grace, John put his hand into his coat and pulled out the Colt. He pointed it at the demon, cocked it. And grinned. "Say hello to Azazel for me. Tell him I'm coming, and he can run, but he can't hide."

John's finger squeezed on the trigger, but before he could finish, the demon threw back the possessed man's head and roared out of the body in a pillar of smoke that gleamed white and red within. It snaked to the ceiling and out through the rafters before Castiel had time to take another breath. Baker's empty body thudded to the floor, a graceless pile of limbs, bloody and dead. Castiel slid down to sit, too, the last of his strength running out. He panted and shook, and Dean knelt beside him, rubbing his shoulder.

"You're not gonna pass out again, are ya, Cas?" the boy asked, forehead bent in anxiety. "'Cause I don't like it when you do that, dude. It freaks me out."

Castiel gave him a smile, shaky and uneven. "Not...not this time, I don't think. Thank you, Dean. You are far too brave for your own good."

John stood by the body, prodding it with one foot. He retrieved Jimmy's boot knife, then looked back to the boys. "Castiel? Dean said it took something from you. What was it?"

"A...a vial. It will look like a vial full of liquid light. That is a physical manifestation only, though."

John bent down to look through the dead man's pockets. He straightened with something in his hand, but Castiel saw no glimmer of light. John turned toward them, holding out the vial, but it was empty.

Castiel exhaled in disappointment. The demon had escaped with his grace. He was still broken. Still useless.

 _No, Castiel,_ Jimmy said. _Never broken. Never useless. It has part of your power, but it doesn't have_ you. _You're more than that._

"Sorry, buddy," John said. He knelt next to them and patted Castiel's shoulder, the one Dean wasn't rubbing. "We'll get it back for ya."

"Yeah," Dean said. "From now on we're painting Devil's Traps freakin' _everywhere_ we go, man!"

~*~

After a while Dean wandered back over to check on Sammy and the girls. John knelt by his oldest boy, a hand on his shoulder. He felt the rigid strength of the angel in the teenage body, the way he held himself, strong and straight but still shivering, exhausted by the battle he had just fought. 

Sammy and Dean's voices registered on the edges of John's senses, sweet and calm as they reassured the girls. They were good boys. A good team. Someday they would be good hunters. For now they were just children, though. They shouldn't have seen what they had seen today, and soon John would have to talk to them about it, make sure they understood, make sure they were okay. For now, though, he was more worried about the child sitting beside him.

He felt the sigh run through Jimmy's body, the slumping of the shoulder under his hand. His posture changed, became simultaneously looser, more childlike, and more tense and curled in on himself, and John knew that Castiel had receded and left Jimmy in charge again. John looked down at him, saw the boy's head buried in his hands, shoulders hunched and trembling.

"Jimmy?" he murmured, not expecting an answer.

He got one, of a sort. Jimmy flinched at the sound of his voice and pulled his elbows in tighter, shaking even more. Turtling up, trying to protect himself. It hadn't been this bad for years, not since the first few months after Jimmy and Castiel joined their broken little family.

John glanced behind him, saw Dean and Sammy sitting by the girls, comforting them as John was trying to comfort Jimmy. "Dean?" he called over his shoulder, just loud enough to cross the distance. "Something else happen here I don't know about?"

"That's the man that hurt Jimmy when he was ten," Dean called back, matter of fact, though his young voice was cold with rage. 

Oh. John looked at the broken corpse that had carried the demon. That was the "Mr. Baker" who haunted Jimmy's nightmares, the drunken, heavy-handed fuck who had turned Jimmy into the mass of bruises and cuts who first showed up in that long-ago motel parking lot, slapping his scraped and shaking hand against the window of the Impala. That was the creature who made Jimmy cringe when John reached out to touch him, the stinking _monster_ who abused an innocent child so severely that even seven years later, few of the scars had faded. 

Castiel had killed him with the boot knife. John firmed his jaw to keep it from shaking and wished that he had been the one to do the deed.

He had to take a moment to breathe. He had to take care not to grip the boy's shoulder too tight. He had to soften his voice, make sure that none of his fury was showing. "Jimmy? He's dead."

Jimmy didn't respond.

John held his shoulder and shifted around to face him, gripped the other one so that he held the boy framed between his big hands. "Jimmy. He's dead. He'll never touch you again."

Jimmy shivered.

He kept his voice low, just between them, trusted Dean and Sammy to keep the girls distracted. They didn't need to see this. "Jimmy, stand up. Come look at him. He's dead."

The boy shook his head, still hidden in his hands.

"Jimmy." John firmed his voice, made it a command. "I want you to see. I want you to know. He'll never touch you again. _Stand up and look at him."_

Jimmy drew a shaky breath and lowered his hands just far enough to plead with his eyes. John stared back steadily and refused to rescind the order. Finally, the boy nodded. He pushed himself to his feet, and John rose with him, helping him up. Once standing, Jimmy's arms wrapped around his torso, instinctively hugging himself, and John put an arm around his shoulders and held him to his side. For once, Jimmy allowed it.

They shuffled over to the corpse and stared down at it. The slack face, the limbs askew, the blood soaking the white Sunday shirt and dark Sunday jacket. They stared for what felt like a very long time, frozen in a single moment of horror and understanding. John only wished that the demon was dead, too. He bitterly regretted the moment he had taken to gloat—he should have just pulled out the Colt and shot it immediately. Then the demon wouldn't be a problem anymore, and they would have retrieved what the evil thing had taken from Castiel. As it was, the creature had lived to fight another day.

But it didn't matter in this moment. John would deal with that later. Right now he had children to take care of.

Jimmy blew out a sigh, breathless and faint. "He's dead," he whispered.

"Yeah," John said.

"He'll never hurt me again."

"No, he won't."

"Or anyone else."

"No."

"He's really dead. He's really gone."

"Yes."

Jimmy started to cry. He turned to John, hiding his face in his chest, wrapping his arms around his middle. John held him tight and let him cry. It was the first time Jimmy had let John hold him when he wasn't unconscious or nearly so.

If nothing else, the day had at least given them one good thing. At least it had given John the opportunity to hug his adopted son. If nothing else, he was grateful for that.

~*~

In the end, it was because of Mrs. Kriegel that they had to leave town. 

John had never officially adopted Jimmy. That would have involved social workers and home visits and way too much contact with the government. Instead he just started calling the boy his son, and Jimmy called himself a Winchester. Bobby Singer provided the forged paperwork, once Castiel told John who the older hunter was and how to find him. It was a lot easier than going through channels and had never caused them a problem before.

Jimmy Novak was probably still listed as missing, presumed dead. Baker had even spent a few months in jail after the investigation into the foster boy's disappearance had turned up too much evidence of abuse for anyone to ignore. But Mrs. Kriegel was asking questions, and eventually someone might care enough to look for the answers.

"I wish you'd _told_ me you came from Pontiac," John said at one point, exasperated but not really angry. He understood Jimmy's need to avoid all mentions of his past. "We could have, you know, not moved here and spent months in a place people might recognize you."

Jimmy just sighed. "Sorry, Dad."

"I swear, from now on, I'm doing a background check on every single person I meet. Including ten-year-old kids."

Dean and Sammy weren't exactly pleased about leaving their school and the friends they had made there (especially Deirdre Graves, in Dean's case). They understood, though, and didn't whine or complain too much. They had both been woken by Jimmy's nightmares for weeks after Baker was dead, both taken turns crawling into his bed and whispering him awake, then curling up with him until he calmed and sleeping there till morning. They eventually decided that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure and just started piling in with him at bedtime, ignoring Jimmy's protests and prevailing by dint of sheer Winchester stubbornness. Moving again sucked, but when it was for their big brother, Dean and Sammy put up with it.

Hardest was saying good-bye to Amelia. Jimmy didn't want to do it, so he kept putting it off, even skipped church their last Sunday in town. In the end, she found him. She looked at the small, pathetic pile of moving boxes stacked outside the garage, heard the younger boys arguing inside about what to leave behind and what to take. When Jimmy came to the door, she simply grabbed his hand and pulled him outside. Jimmy's shoulders hunched up, but he went with her.

They stood under the maple tree, now with only one blood-colored leaf clinging to a high branch, piles of red and rust drifting around their feet. Amelia took Jimmy's face in her hands and kissed him. Jimmy closed his eyes, falling into it, his blood rushing in his ears, his heart. His hands trembled, electric, and folded around her waist almost of their own volition. He knew what this was, now, and it hurt. It hurt because they were leaving, they had to leave, they always left. It wasn't right; it wasn't fair.

When she drew back, he opened his eyes and just stared. 

"Do you really have to go?"

Jimmy shuffled his foot in the leaves, looking away. His hands dropped reluctantly, buried themselves in his pockets. "Yeah. I wish I didn't."

"I don't want you to."

"I'm sorry."

As usual, talking wasn't really their strength.

"Will you come back?"

Jimmy shrugged. "I dunno. We...we go all over. It's not just demons that are real. So are ghosts. And lots of other stuff. We...kill them. It's just how it is for us."

"You're heroes. You're a hero, Jimmy Winchester."

Jimmy was startled into meeting her eyes. "No, it was Castiel who..."

"No." She put a hand on his chest. "You. Now that I know he's there...I can tell the difference. Castiel is amazing, but you are too."

Her other hand still rested on his right cheek. Jimmy leaned into it, lifted his hand to hold her cheek, too. "Amelia..."

"Will you write me? Or call me? Or anything?"

"I'll try."

She pulled away, reached into her pocket. She kept a small diary there, a pen on a ribbon. A quick rip, and she pulled out a page and began to write.

"Amelia... Please look at me."

Amelia paused long enough to look up at him, her eyes wide and blue. "Amelia, someday... Someday we'll find that demon, and Castiel will get his mojo back. He'll be able to leave me then, or... Someday we'll finish this, someday I'll be able to have my own life. Maybe. I hope. Will you...?"

She smiled sweetly, so sweetly. "I'll wait for you. I don't care how long it takes."

His heart clenched in his chest and his breath caught his throat. "Oh, Amelia, please..." He didn't mean to sound so pleading, but he couldn't help it. "You don't know, you can't know what will happen... Please, please, don't make a promise you can't keep."

"Jimmy." A push, a hand tight in his shirt, and she kissed him again. This was deeper, almost frantic. Jimmy couldn't breathe. He opened to her, pushed back into her mouth, and she took everything he had and gave it back to him, larger and more beautiful. He never wanted it to end.

When Amelia pulled away this time he was dizzy, breathless, watching her retreat through a haze and wanting nothing but her return. "Jimmy. I never do."

"I'll write you every chance I get."

She pressed the paper into his hand, and he glanced down, saw the phone number and address before he closed the paper in his fist and held it close like the precious thing it was. 

"Don't forget me," she said.

"Never."

It was all they had. It would have to be enough.

Jimmy returned to the house and stepped inside only to be greeted by utter silence. Dean and Sammy stood in the doorway to their room, watching him with wide eyes. Dad was in the kitchen, pretending not to watch him, but Jimmy could totally tell that he was.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Jimmy said. "Yeah, I'm fine. Are you guys done packing?"

Sammy moved over to him and wrapped his arms around Jimmy's middle in a wordless hug. Jimmy breathed in deep and hugged him back. 

And they went back to the business of being Winchesters.

~*~

Castiel watched the rain fall as they drove away from another town. Jimmy had retreated inside their shared mind, curled up and hurting. There was nothing Castiel could do for him. It made him ache.

The taste of Amelia still lingered on their lips. Castiel tried not to acknowledge it, knowing that it wasn't for him.

"You doing okay, Cas?" John asked.

Castiel turned to look at him, startled by the use of the diminutive. He'd never imagined it crossing John's lips, but the man seemed to take to it naturally, as easy with it as Dean had ever been. "I'm...coping."

"Yeah." John kept his eyes straight ahead, watching the road. Dean and Sammy were quiet in the backseat, watching the rain crawl backwards on their windows in branching streams. Creedence Clearwater Revival wailed on the radio, melancholy and deep.

_Someone told me long ago, there's a calm before the storm. I know it's been coming for some time. When it's over, so they say, it'll rain a sunny day. I know, shinin' down like water._

"We'll get him," John said. "That demon that took your grace, hurt you, trapped you. We'll get him. We'll get it back."

Castiel nodded slowly. "I'm sure you will do everything you can."

"Yeah, but..." John looked away from the rainy road for a moment, all but forcing Castiel to meet his eyes. "I'm not just saying that we're gonna try, dude. I'm not just saying that if it comes up, we'll take care of it. I'm making you a promise. We _will_ get this demon and give you back what he took from you. We're going to do it. We'll get 'im, Cas."

_Till forever on it goes, through the circle fast and slow. I know it can't stop, I wonder._

Castiel blinked and looked ahead into the rain. The road stretched on, endless. Dean and John called him "Cas" now. He had a nickname; he was family. Not just Jimmy— _him._ Castiel. Cas.

"Thank you," he said.

John shrugged. "No big deal. I know you're an ancient warrior angel with thousands of years of experience and knowledge and all... But you're also my kid. You dig?"

"I dig."

Castiel Winchester looked ahead at the endless road, saw a destination somewhere beyond. He watched the rain and knew that somewhere ahead the clouds broke and fled. Somewhere they vanished. Somewhere, rain didn't fall, and the sunlight was warm and golden and full of promise.

_I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day._

**End of Book Two**


	7. Second Interlude: Pass As Your Comrade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from ["Cruel War" by Peter, Paul & Mary](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwuMW2MYFBM). Give it a listen—it really is shockingly appropriate.

**Second Interlude: I'll Pass as Your Comrade**

Macon, Georgia  
March 17, 1992

"Jimmy, Jimmy!"

The front door of the trailer crashed open, and the whirlwind of limbs and school papers that embodied Sammy Winchester rushed inside, roaring from one end of the box-shaped dwelling to the other. He paused briefly in each room, turning his head rapidly from side to side then barreling onward when the object of his quest did not immediately appear.

"Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy! Hey, Jimmy, hey!"

In the closet-sized room that John Winchester had appropriated for his office/den/war room, the patriarch looked up from his maps and books long enough to open his mouth, but Sammy had already slammed the door shut and hurried on before he could get any words out. In the kitchen, Dean barely glanced up from the project he was working on, just long enough to make sure Sammy wouldn't run into him and spoil his steady arm, then went back to what he was doing with fierce concentration. This was going to be the best cake ever, Dean was determined.

"Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy!"

"What, what, what?" The (currently) tallest Winchester son finally stepped in the back door that led into the kitchen, just in time to catch the eight-year-old bundle of exuberance who launched himself into his arms.

Jimmy clutched the boy to his chest for a moment, then set him down again. "I'm here, Samster, no need to go yelling the house down." Jimmy glanced around at the thin walls, partly for humorous effect and partly because it really did seem like any disturbance might bring the entire trailer down around their ears. He looked back at Sammy, beaming all over his face. "What is it?"

"It's your birthday, Jimmy! Happy birthday!"

Sammy waved a paper in front of his brother's face, and Jimmy had to bob his head side to side to catch the colorful words on it. It looked like a school project, construction paper letters glue-sticked to thin white paper. Finally, Sammy made himself hold still enough to actually give it to him, and Jimmy saw that it was a homemade card.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY in rainbow colors was carefully pasted in an arc across the entire sheet, and below was written in colored pencil, a different color for every letter, "Jimmy Winchester is 18 today! Congradulations!" Sammy had good penmanship, and it was all perfectly neat and tidy. A great deal of care and thought had gone into this single piece of paper.

Jimmy accepted the card gently in both hands. It didn't seem possible, but his smile might have grown even bigger. "Thank you, Sammy. This is awesome."

"What about my cake?" Dean straightened up from the counter to gesture at it with the frosting-covered knife in his hand. "Is it not the most awesome cake you have ever seen?"

"It is," Jimmy said. He turned to Dean and nodded earnestly at the cake on the kitchen counter. "It's the best cake I've ever seen."

There wasn't even a hint of teasing in his voice, and Dean nodded, then turned back to put the finishing touches on his masterpiece. The frosting was bright blue and as smooth as a thirteen-year-old with a butter knife could make it. Now Dean was using the knife and the leftover frosting to draw tiny sigils on the plate around the cake in honor of Castiel. No one knew when Cas's birthday was, not even the angel himself, so they celebrated his arrival to the world, and to the Winchester family, at the same time as they did Jimmy's.

"Dad said he might get pizza," Sammy said, tugging on Jimmy's arm. "Is that still gonna happen?"

"Yep, he already ordered it, and he picked up pop on the way home from work," Dean said with great satisfaction. He could not imagine a better birthday supper than pizza and soda, with cake to follow afterward.

"We should remind him to go pick it up," Sammy said, moving back toward John's office/den. He had yet to remove his backpack or jacket, and Jimmy followed after him, tugging on the strap at the top of his bag.

"Here, let me get that for you. How was your after-school group?"

"Oh, it was awesome," Sammy said, always ready to chat about school, and he was off. Jimmy had succeeded in distracting him from disturbing Dad.

A few minutes later, John emerged from the tiny room on his own, giving Jimmy a grateful nod as he slipped out the door to drive to the pizza place. Jimmy nodded back, releasing a silent sigh. He'd bought John enough time to hide all the really nasty hunting stuff before Sammy poked his head in again and got curious.

Supper was perfect, and the cake was amazing.

X~*~X

Afterward, they piled the dishes in the sink and left them alone. Sammy and Dean went to the living room and turned on the TV, flipping channels in hopes of finding something that would be fun enough for birthday entertainment. Jimmy sat at the table, so full of pizza and cake that he couldn't imagine moving for at least an hour. The angel in his head buzzed gently with pleasure and contentment, having enjoyed the day as much as Jimmy had. Happy Winchesters had that effect.

Dad stood up from the table with a groan and moved over to the fridge to get a beer. After a glance at Jimmy, he grabbed two bottles, opened them both, and brought them back. He set one in front of Jimmy, nudging his cup of lemon-lime soda aside.

"I know you're not twenty-one, but you're man enough to try it," Dad said. "When I was your age, I was going to war. And you're already in one."

Jimmy looked up at him, then down at the beer, frowning thoughtfully. He wrapped his fingers around the cold bottle experimentally at first, then more firmly. _Never thought of it that way. Beer as a warrior's reward,_ Castiel said. Jimmy smiled and reported the sentiment to Dad.

Dad grinned back at him, then gestured with his bottle. "Go ahead, give it a try."

Jimmy lifted the bottle to his lips and took a sip. The cold of the liquid felt nice, but he grimaced at the flavor, yeasty and strong and a touch bitter. He shuddered and set the bottle back on the table, his face screwed up. He looked at Dad with a faint feeling of betrayal. He thought this stuff was supposed to be good.

Dad laughed at him. "Yeah, it's an acquired taste. Keep going."

With this sip Jimmy was more aware of the alcoholic tang underneath. He felt a little dizzy, and he wondered if it was really possible to feel tipsy after two swallows of beer.

 _Lightweight._ Castiel's presence in his mind radiated fondness.

He watched Dad with one eye, the other squinted shut. John Winchester's face was warm with contentment, his eyes far away as he drank his beer, the level of liquid in the bottle decreasing much more quickly than Jimmy's. He was in a good mood, but edging toward nostalgia, Jimmy could tell at a glance.

Jimmy no longer tensed up when the alcohol came out, but he couldn't help noticing how it affected those who drank. He'd gotten too used to watching, keeping a wary eye out. John had never been violent, but Jimmy still kept expecting violence. His intense concentration on avoiding being hit had almost made him miss the other bad effects getting drunk had on John.

But that was all in the past. It had taken Dad years to get his drinking under control, but now he only drank when he was in a good mood, for the pleasure of it rather than to drown himself, and that made all the difference. Still, nostalgia could turn into melancholy, and melancholy could become paralysis. So Jimmy watched.

But that wasn't where Dad's mind was going tonight. Once he got enough beer in his system to make him more loose and comfortable, he raised his head and met Jimmy's eyes again. He smiled, warm and broad, his dark eyes affectionate. "What do you want to do, son?"

"Do?" Jimmy blinked. He hadn't the faintest idea where this was going.

"With your life," Dad said. "You're eighteen today. You'll graduate high school in a couple of months. You have your own car. Not even Cas can stop you from doing whatever you want. What do you want to do with your life?"

"I…I don't know." It had never occurred to him that he had a choice. Jimmy stared down at the table, suddenly overwhelmed.

Dad's voice was still warm, still relaxed and comfortable. "You could go to college. I know you haven't applied anywhere, but you're a smart kid. You could…you could find out where Amelia is going and try there."

 _You could,_ Castiel said. His sense was subdued now, no longer expansive and vibrating with happiness. He had tamped himself into a corner of Jimmy's mind, hiding his emotions from his vessel. He was trying to create some distance and let Jimmy have his own thoughts and feelings, make his decision without being influenced by the angel in his head.

But Jimmy had been living side by side with Castiel's spirit, crammed up together in the space of one human skull, for too long. He didn't have to feel Castiel's emotions in the moment—he already knew exactly what Castiel was feeling, just because he knew the angel so well. Castiel didn't want to leave the Winchesters, not even for a few weeks, let alone a few years.

But he wanted Jimmy to have the choice.

 _This time in history is relatively quiet,_ Castiel said. _We've already done a great deal to influence the path ahead. In the other future, the Winchesters got along well enough on their own until Azazel truly started winding up the machinery to start the Apocalypse in 2005. That's more than a decade away. You could take a few years and go to college._

He could. For a moment, Jimmy allowed himself the fantasy. He imagined going to school at some Midwestern college, Purdue or Northwestern or Michigan State, drifts of red and golden leaves, blankets of thickly fallen snow, cozy sweaters and high-vaulted libraries that smelled of leather and time. He imagined going to classes he actually wanted to take, scribbling down notes as learned professors expounded on increasingly obscure and fascinating subjects. Castiel knew a great deal, and therefore Jimmy did too, but higher learning held vast arenas of literature and art and cultural history that even an angel did not begin to understand. Jimmy could study them, he could delve into the realm of humanity and lose himself entirely, forgetting all about Azazel and demons and violated children and the coming end of the world.

And he imagined Amelia. He imagined taking her on dates, crisp fall evenings when they were both free, walks in spring gardens, small-town soda shops and diners where they could tuck themselves into a corner and talk for hours. He imagined taking classes with her, walking down a sidewalk holding hands, slipping notes to each other like grade-schoolers while the buzz of the lecture continued above their heads. He imagined studying together, lounging on a sofa in a busy student center or crouching in uncomfortable chairs in the back of a musty library.

It would be sweet. It would be like a dream, one that Jimmy had not dared to let himself have.

But then his mind slipped the other way around, like turning a mirror at a forty-five degree angle, and he wondered what he would miss. Dean was already not having the best time in junior high—how would he fare in high school without Jimmy looking after him? Who would drive Sammy to meet his friends for study group? What would Dad do when he needed to take off on a weekend hunt?

 _They can handle themselves,_ Castiel said. _In the other timeline, Dean had already been looking out for his brother on his own for several years at this point. John can take them to Bobby Singer's when he feels the need to pursue a dangerous hunt. It is not incumbent upon you to serve this family at your own expense. You are allowed to have desires and passions of your own._

"I do," Jimmy said slowly, and Dad raised his eyebrows. It was a non-sequitur, but they'd all gotten used to hearing snatches of speech from Jimmy that had nothing to do with the audible conversation.

Jimmy looked up at his father, including him in the discussion. "I could go to college. There are things I want to do. I have interests I want to follow. But what you said is true…. I'm in a war."

Dad grimaced. "I didn't mean…"

"I know," Jimmy said. "You didn't mean that I was stuck in it forever, that I can't take a leave of absence. But… That's kind of the way it is, even though you didn't say it.

"I'm in a war. We're all in a war. It's invisible to most of the world, but it's real, it's happening, and it's the most important thing going, it really is. If I go to college, I'll worry every day. I'll think about you, wherever you are, and fret about demons coming after you without Castiel there to see them coming. I'll worry about you getting killed on a hunt, and Dean and Sammy being stuck somewhere, all alone with no one to take care of them."

"That's not gonna happen. I can take care of the boys," Dad said, unconsciously echoing Castiel's earlier declaration. But Jimmy shook his head before he could go on.

"I know you can. I even know they can take care of each other. But that won't stop me from wondering, and worrying, and stressing out every day I'm apart from you."

"Jimmy…"

"And if something does happen, and I could have prevented it? If we could have prevented it, me or Castiel or both? I'd never forgive myself."

Dad sighed. His beer bottle was empty, and he pushed it aside and reached for Jimmy's, still held loosely in his hand. Jimmy let it go without a fuss. That stuff was nasty. Dad took a long pull, then looked Jimmy in the eyes again, man to man.

"What about Amelia?"

Jimmy's heart squeezed. That dream of college, of being with her almost every day, made his entire body ache with longing. But he knew now that it was only a dream. The reality would not be nearly so sweet, made bitter and sour by the knowledge that he should be fighting. He should be standing with his brothers and his father.

"She'll wait for me," Jimmy said. "She'll have to. And if she won't… I'll have to learn to live with that."

"No," Dad said softly. "I think she'll wait."

 _I do, as well,_ Castiel said. His emotions were slipping out again, warm and sad, lapping around Jimmy's mind like waves on a sunlit beach. He was glad Jimmy had chosen not to go, and also immensely regretful.

Jimmy understood. He felt that way himself.

It wasn't fair. But no one ever said life was fair, least of all a Winchester.

"Everything will wait," he said, straightening in his chair. The decision was made. "When it's over, I'll do everything I want to do. I promise you that."

Dad nodded, strong and sure. "I know you will. And we'll do everything we can to make sure you'll be able to."

 _We all will,_ Castiel said.

Promises all around.

"Hey, Jimmy!" Dean yelled. He popped up to beam at them over the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area, his entire face lit up with victory over his successful battle with the TV. "We found _Top Gun!_ Come and watch with us!"

"Best movie ever!" Sammy squealed, and Jimmy laughed.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming." He levered himself up from the table, a hand to his stomach to hold in all the pizza and cake. "Dad?"

Dad gave him a lopsided grin. "Of course I'm coming. I would never miss Goose and Maverick fighting those bogeys."

Jimmy and his dad settled on the broken down couch, Sammy and Dean on the floor leaning against their legs. They watched the best movie of the previous decade, and even Castiel had fun, and Jimmy was completely satisfied with his eighteenth birthday. His life as currently arranged wasn't bad at all. Sure, he had a lot of plans for the future, once the Apocalypse had been well and truly averted, but that didn't mean he couldn't find joy and harmony and even peace in his current circumstances. On days like this, it was kind of easy.

**End of Second Interlude**


	8. Book Three: Prologue & Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Winchester has four sons, but to an outside observer, he appears to have only three. Their mission is to stop the Apocalypse before it starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [YouTube Playlist for Books 3 & 4,](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLelj9LO80m3sYyzg0uLH71ln7ohkdaq41) from whence came the titles.

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day  
Book Three: The Children of Azazel

****

**Prologue: Storm Is Raging**

_Castiel was trapped. He was surrounded by twisted white and gold, a typhoon of sensation wrapping him in coils of burning gold. And it burned, it burned like fire. It coiled like snakes, it tore like swords, a thousand swords, a million swords. All inescapable, indefatigable, because they were inside him. He was trapped inside his own mind, writhing and twisting against the bonds that held his being trapped in fiery hands._

_He wanted to scream. Maybe he did scream somewhere beyond this, in the physical space where his body still existed, his vessel, Jimmy. Maybe Jimmy's mouth opened in a cry, a wrenching shriek of agony and terror. Castiel didn't know. He couldn't tell. He was unable to communicate with Jimmy for the first time in almost fourteen years, and that was the most terrifying of all._

_Castiel's being convulsed in the conflagration that encased him, his mind thrashing with confusion and panic. He didn't know what this was, only that it was terrible and powerful and demonic. He was trapped and he was helpless, and he didn't know what was happening to his family._

_Were they being attacked while he was held thus helpless, unable to do anything to protect them? Was John holding the Colt against a threat, was Dean loading a shotgun with salt while spitting obscenities with twisted lips and raging eyes, was Sammy reciting the Psalms, the Lord's Prayer, warding against the dark in the signs Castiel had taught him? Was Jimmy...was Jimmy able to stand at all?_

_Jimmy didn't fight. He wasn't the warrior the rest of them were, not in a physical sense. When danger came, except on rare occasions, he stepped back and let Castiel take control of their body. How was he handling it now, with Castiel somehow separated, segregated, torn from the familiarity of Jimmy's mind?_

_Castiel fought harder, and if he'd had a physical heart it would have been pounding with fear and concern. He had to get out, he had to escape, he had to return to Jimmy. But the molten gold prison tightened around him, burning, tearing, immolating, and he was powerless in its implacable grip._

**Chapter 1: Talking Away**

Two Months Earlier  
San Diego, California  
March 1997

Time to pull up stakes in another town. It was never Sammy's favorite day, but he understood the necessity, and he was looking forward to the next stop. Cas said the next guy was a special one. He wouldn't say why, of course—Cas never told Sammy why, just where and who—but Sammy trusted Cas. He was his big brother. The oldest of his three big brothers, if you wanted to put it that way, though most people wouldn't.

The Winchesters had been invited to have dinner over at Lily's place before they left, which was nice. Sammy let Jimmy and Dean pack the car while he made brownies in the kitchen, a box mix from the grocery, eggs and oil, the rich smell of chocolate, the punchy scent of gas from the old stove when he lit it. You were always supposed to take something with you when you were a guest. One of Mom’s rules that they still followed.

The timer was broken, so he stood by the oven with a watch in his hand, leaning down now and again to check. Dean would be heartbroken if the brownies burned. He'd had enough of what he called "Cas's cooking" when they were younger, before they learned to never let the oldest Winchester boy near any form of heat with any kind of food. Smoke invariably followed. Dad ruffled Sammy's hair on his way through the kitchen, an armful of binders trapped against his side, and Sammy looked up long enough to give him a grin.

He didn't burn the brownies.

"C'mon, kiddo, daylight's wasting!" Dean bellowed from outside. Sammy rolled his eyes, not pausing as he carefully cut the brownies into squares in the aluminum pan. He was using a pocketknife, the rest of their kitchen gear already packed up in the pickup truck Dad drove now, since he'd given Dean the Impala when he turned eighteen two months ago. Finally satisfied, Sammy lifted the pan by the edges, wincing a bit at the remaining heat, and hurried out to the driveway.

Dean leaned on the Impala's horn, waving out the window for Sammy to run. Castiel and Jimmy sat beside him in the Impala, as calm and serene as always, unblinking blue eyes watching Sammy come. Sammy stuck his tongue out at his brothers anyway and hopped into the front seat of the pickup to ride with his dad.

Dad laughed as Sam set the brownies down between them, then pulled his door shut. "Thanks for picking me, dude. I'd feel a little silly driving this big truck all by myself while all four of my sons took the other car."

"This huge truck makes everyone look silly, Dad."

Still, Sammy grinned, watching the Impala ahead as Dean led the way to Lily's house. He could see the backs of his brothers' heads, one sandy gold, one dark brown that was almost black. Dean was animated, talking and gesturing, fiddling with the radio, tapping his hands on the wheel, while Cas and Jimmy rarely moved, just nodding or listening. It was probably Cas in charge, then—Jimmy would fight over the radio and do his best to make Dean angry about something. That was one of Jimmy's favorite games, for a reason Sammy didn't understand yet. Maybe it was a big brother thing.

Dean drove more carefully than usual, not accelerating as hard, not braking as quickly. It was probably because of his passengers. Since Jimmy and Cas had wrecked Jimmy’s car last summer, both had been a little nervous about it happening again, though Cas was better at hiding it than Jimmy was. The other Winchesters had yet to get the full story on that crash and how it had happened—Jimmy and Castiel had taken off on a side-trip to Ohio on their own, and both had been unwilling to talk about what happened afterward. 

Dean and Dad assumed embarrassment and humiliation to be the cause of their silence. From his oldest brothers’ sidelong glances and body language, Sammy suspected that something deeper was going on. He hadn’t pressed them for the story, though. Cas and Jimmy would talk when they were ready.

The lights were on at Lily's house, and the front door was open. Her two little brothers, seven and eight years old, were playing in the yard when the Winchesters arrived. The boys jumped to wave at them, leaving their toy cars in the grass. Sammy waved back before the truck even pulled to a stop along the curb. Thomas ran inside to tell the rest of the family that they'd arrived, while GJ stood there on the grass, waving happily.

The Winchesters got out of their cars. GJ grabbed Sammy by the hand to drag him inside, and he barely had  time to look around as the little boy hauled him bodily into the house. The first thing he saw inside was the huge dreamcatcher hung on the wall opposite the front door, dominating the entire entryway, string and beads and feathers, a complicated geometrical pattern bound in a hoop of leather and wood.

Sammy grinned at it. It was a new addition to the house he hadn't seen yet. Castiel was predictably unconvinced of the usefulness of symbols that weren't from his religion, and Jimmy took his side as usual, but Dean and Sammy were of the opinion that anything was worth a try. Anyway, the artisan Dad had found had been able to work a simple Devil's Trap into the pattern, similar to the one in the new red and gold rug on the entryway floor.

The light fixtures in the living room also held the points of a protective pentagon, and Castiel's carefully inscribed symbols decorated every corner and every window. Instead of being hidden and minimized as in almost every other building Castiel had tried to protect over the years, these were large, artistic, and displayed boldly as if intentional to the decoration. Lily's father, Gray, had renovated the entire house into an arcane enclave that would have made any of the Winchesters’ ancestors proud. Every art piece had a purpose, and every protection was built in and foundational to the design and the appearance of the whole.

Lily and her parents greeted the Winchesters inside the door, smiling and happy to see them. The house smelled amazing—pork chops and potatoes and green beans, GJ told them in an excited chatter. Candace, Lily's stepmother, took Sammy's pan of brownies with a gracious smile. Supper was almost ready and the Winchester boys were invited to sit at the table while she and Lily finished the last minute touches. Dean followed Candace into the kitchen, declaring his intention to taste test everything to make sure it was fit for his family to eat.

"I'm sorry you're passing on so soon," Gray said once they were settled, his hands folded above his plate almost in an attitude of prayer. "I feel like we still have so much to learn from you."

"We've taught you plenty, don't worry," Dad said. "That list of books Sammy gave you will help with any questions. And you can call us or Bobby or any of the hunters in that contact book if you need more."

"It's just, every time I remember that day..." Gray shuddered. "That cloud of black smoke coming out of my little boy, and your son, what he did..." He inclined his head toward Cas, who nodded back. "I can't help wondering, sometimes, what would have happened if you hadn't been here, if Jimmy hadn't happened to join Sammy to visit his little brother's new friend..."

"It was why we came," Castiel said with his customary gravity.

"Yes, so you said. I still find it hard to believe."

"Lily will be fine now," Sammy said. "She'll have to be prepared, just like I will, for the powers to manifest. But she'll be fine. She knows what to expect now."

"I can hear you talking about me!" Lily yelled from the kitchen, and the men in the dining room laughed, then turned the conversation to other things.

Dinner was delicious. Afterward, Lily pulled Sammy aside while Jimmy and Candace chatted and did the dishes, while Thomas and GJ embroiled Dean in a game of Go Fish, and Gray and Dad talked solemnly at the table about matters only mature men and fathers cared to discuss. Sammy and Lily wandered out to the back patio, the western sky now dim and red-streaked, the new spring too cool to be comfortable. They sat in plastic lawn chairs and contemplated the freshly tilled garden, the tall bushes around the patio rustling in the evening breeze.

"I'm still scared," Lily said.

"You'll be fine," Sammy said. There was no wavering in his voice, just as there had been no wavering when he said the same words to her father.

"It's still scary, though. All that stuff about how both of our mothers died, on fire on the ceiling. Why they died. A demon feeding us blood when we were infants. It's...it's scary."

"Yeah." Sam scuffed his toe on the artfully shaped flagstones underfoot. "Try not to think about it too much. We're trying to stop it. We're going to stop it. That's why...that's why my oldest brother traveled back in time to find us before everything got really awful."

They didn't usually tell outsiders about the existence of Castiel. It wasn't necessary. The whole "time-traveler from the future" part was difficult enough to grasp without bringing in the concept of angels. Jimmy and Cas's personalities blended together enough, at least to outside observers, that they could pass as the same person. They still came off as a weirdo, but no one had tried to hospitalize them for Multiple Personality Disorder.

"Right, yeah, that’s why." Lily laughed a touch hysterically.

Sammy smiled back wryly. Yep, the time-travel thing was enough craziness in itself.

"So now you're moving on.” Lily spoke the words slowly, as if feeling the shape of them in her mouth, testing their veracity, forcing herself to believe. “To the next person Azazel fed his blood to. So you can stop his plan before it starts, whatever it is."

Sammy nodded. Neutralizing the army of Azazel's blood-children had been the Winchesters' life for not quite two years. Prior to that had been mostly preparation for this quest, though Sammy had been too young to understand what his family was doing. He'd first learned about the existence of demons (and Castiel) when he was eight. It wasn't until he was twelve, deemed ready to join the family business by his father and older brothers, that they told him the rest of it.

He understood Lily's fear. He was still learning to deal with his own. It was terrible to know that he was supposed to have a role in the plans of such a powerful and evil creature as Azazel, a fallen angel, one of Lucifer's hand-picked leaders of Hell. It was disgusting and disturbing to know that his body, even his soul, had been tainted by the blood of a demon, changing his physiology and his spirit into something not quite human.

"What do you think your powers will be?" Lily asked. "Did Jimmy tell you?"

Sammy shrugged. "He doesn't want me to worry about it. He says he'll help me when they show up. I think the not knowing might be worse than knowing would be, though."

She nodded slowly, her long dark hair falling over her face, obscuring it even more than the twilight already had. She wore a lot of make up, Sammy had noticed, dark clothes, long fingerless gloves up to her elbows. He didn't begrudge her any measure of self-protection that she deemed necessary.

"Jimmy said he didn't even know what mine will be,” Lily said. “He didn't meet me in the future. I wonder if that means I was dead."

"Don't think like that," Sammy said, interrupting before the last word had finished leaving her mouth. "Negative thoughts, putting yourself down, stuff like that feeds the dark. You need to have as much mental discipline as possible."

"Right." Lily hesitated. "Jimmy told me to try meditating and memorizing religious texts, whichever kind I like. Is that what you do?"

"Uh huh." Sammy smiled softly. "Usually Jimmy helps me. I kinda like it."

His times of meditating and memorizing with Castiel (and sometimes Jimmy) were among the most peaceful of his current life. Dean and Dad always wanted to take him running, shooting, camping, or something else that would make him strong. When he wasn't training mentally or physically, he was working on making friends with the latest child of Azazel they had located. It was a lot of pressure, a lot of responsibility, but Sammy was dealing with it as gracefully as he could.

This was a lot of pressure for Lily, too. They fell silent, looking out on the yard in peaceful companionship. Sammy felt close to Lily in a way he couldn't feel with anyone else, neither his classmates who knew nothing of the supernatural, nor even his family, who, while striving against the dark as mightily as he, at least didn't have to fear the manifestation of darkness in their own bodies. Lily was his sister as much as Dean and Jimmy and Cas were his brothers. He'd felt the same with the other children of Azazel they'd already met.

"Can I tell you something?" Lily asked after a long silence. He took the question as confirmation that she felt the same way.

"Yeah, of course."

"I know I've had a lot of things going on lately, and most people would tell me that I'm probably just confused and I'm going through a phase or something. But I think...I think I like girls."

Sammy laughed. "That's cool."

"You don't think I'm confused or going through a phase, do you? I mean. My life has been kind of hectic these past couple of months."

He shrugged. "Don't worry about it. You'll figure it out."

Lily relaxed abruptly, leaning back in her lawn chair, thick-soled boots scraping on the flagstones. "Okay. Thanks, Sammy."

"No problem."

"Are you guys really gonna leave straight from this house and drive through the night to get to your next stop?"

Sammy sighed. "Yeah." He suspected he would be sleeping through most of it, but he still didn't like the night drives. He found it too disorienting to go from being in one place at night to finding himself in a brand new one in the morning, without being able to watch their surroundings in between to give himself a sense of transition.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you, too."

He meant it. But he was also glad to know that Lily and her family were checked off the list, in a way. They were as safe as the Winchesters could make them.

Now it was time to protect another family who faced a terrible future unless Sammy and his family could save them.

X~*~X

Sammy was asleep in the back seat, sprawled out with one arm hanging over into the footwell, the other bent up against the backrest. Dean smirked at him in the rearview mirror, watching until he saw the unconscious twitch, the boneless shift when the car hit a bump, that told him Sammy was truly and deeply asleep. Dean turned his attention to the dark road ahead. They still had a long way to go, all the way to Colorado. The headlamps lit up the surrounding darkness in a cone of brightness like a lighthouse on a shore, the tires hummed on the asphalt, Dad led the way in his enormous truck, and Jimmy was keeping him company, slouched against the passenger door forcing his eyelids open every other minute.

"Is Cas asleep?" Dean asked.

He often wondered about what was going on inside that nerdy skull. It wasn't something either of his big brothers cared to discuss—what it was like to live in another person's head twenty-four hours a day for thirteen years. The Winchesters all lived in each other's pockets, constantly moving, constantly on the road, in and out of shabby motels and run-down apartments, taking with them only the few boxes they could carry in their cars. But Jimmy and Castiel definitely had the weirdest arrangement.

Jimmy shrugged, suppressing a yawn. "As close as he gets to it, yeah. He really likes riding with you in the Impala. It's the most relaxed and peaceful he ever feels. Like the world is almost right for him, for once."

"Yeah?" The idea was fascinating to Dean. He knew that he and Castiel must have been friends in the future Cas had come from. It was in the way the angel looked at him out of Jimmy's blue eyes when he thought no one noticed, soft and warm and affectionate. It was in the way he gave in to almost anything Dean wanted, and it was in the way his face lightened, the way he almost smiled, when he talked with Dean one on one.

Dean hoped his future self hadn't been too much of a dick to poor Cas. He was kind of a dick now, he knew, but he couldn't help it. He was eighteen, tough and strong and happy, with the best family and the best job in the universe. Being a dick came naturally.

Jimmy smiled. "Yeah." He leaned his head back on the headrest with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling.

If any time was a good time to ask, now was it. "Do you ever see...do you ever see anything about what's coming? Cas's memories of the future?"

Jimmy turned his head to look at Dean with narrowed eyes. "Not really. He shields them from me as much as he can. He doesn't want me to be traumatized by all the ugly bad stuff, probably. Same reason he doesn't want to tell Sammy yet that all this running around the country is about stopping the Apocalypse before it starts."

Dean frowned at the darkness in front of the Impala. Dad was far enough ahead that the truck was just a rectangular blob with two red brake lights standing out against the surrounding night. "Cas needs to get over that. We're old enough to handle everything he knows. At least you and me are. I'm still down with not telling Sammy about the Apocalypse until we absolutely have to."

Jimmy blew out a breath. "Yeah, I know. Sometimes he acts like I'm still the terrified, busted-up ten-year-old he met that first day. A lot of the time, though, I think if anyone's still traumatized, it's Castiel. That was...that was a rough waking up."

Dean was silent. He hoped Jimmy would say more. They'd never talked about that day, when Castiel woke after being unconscious for months. His grace had been torn and mangled by a demon during his travel through time, and he'd accidentally slammed into Jimmy as a kid instead of taking the older vessel along as he'd meant to. Then to wake up months later, and realize what had happened…

It must have been awful.

Apparently Jimmy had decided Dean was old enough to hear some of this now, or maybe he was too tired to care, because after a minute he kept going. "Yeah, that...that was a bad day. Mr. Baker beat me pretty bad that morning. Then he locked me in the closet without any food or water. I was in there for hours. Who knows how long. I was scared he would just leave me in there for days, like he had one time on a weekend. It was summer vacation, so he could have. No need to clean me up and send me to school, no teachers to wonder about the bruises....

"It was raining. I could hear it outside, tapping on the windows. I was so thirsty my mouth felt like sand, and the closet was stuffy and hot, and I just wanted to go out in the rain and sit in the mud and let it run over me for as long as it took to cool down. It was all I wanted, seemed like it was all I could ever want, I wanted it so bad.”

Dean clenched the steering wheel with whitening knuckles and forced himself to be still and silent. He hadn't known that part. He'd known that Jimmy had had a bad foster family, one that abused him and messed with his head, but he'd never learned any of the details.

Part of him was glad Mr. Baker was already dead, killed by Castiel's boot knife six years ago. Part of him wished the bastard was still alive so he could go and do the deed himself. But he tightened his lips and drove his car, grinding his teeth as silently as possible so Jimmy wouldn't hear. He wanted the guy to keep talking.

Jimmy did. Now that he'd started telling the story, it seemed like he couldn't stop.

"Then something happened. I didn't know what it was. I thought maybe I was having a seizure, like this kid I knew in fourth grade, or an aneurysm or something. It started as a tickling in the back of my mind, this slow, curious pulse, like someone asking a question. Whatever it was, whoever it was, they were confused and sluggish, trying to figure out where they were and what was going on. Everything seemed wrong to them. They expected to be in a bigger body, to be strong and in control.

"Suddenly my head was all full of bright white sparks, and it spun and it burned and it lit up my brain with fire. All I could do was lie there on the floor and try to breathe. I'm sure you figured it out—it was Castiel. And yeah, he panicked. I felt his terror and pain, the wounds that had torn him up. Then the light of him, what was left of his grace, rushed all through my body from the ends of my hair to the tips of my toes. He figured out what had happened, what he'd done to me, and I felt his horror. I stopped thinking about how bad I hurt, because all I felt was sorry for this creature inside of me.

"And yeah. That was how it started."

Jimmy fell silent. Dean blinked and tried to breathe, tried to loosen his fingers and unknot them from around the steering wheel. He'd been sitting forward, practically on the edge of the seat hugging the wheel, and he forced himself to lean back and let the Impala embrace him again.

"He got you out of there." Dean meant the words to be light, just an easy little question, but his voice came out dark and insistent and heavy. He didn't want it to be a question. He wanted it to be fact.

"Yeah, he got me out of there." Jimmy slid his head sideways on the seat to look at Dean again. "Did everything he could to help me feel better, too. He couldn't heal me like he wanted to. Couldn't even leave my body so he could come back with a stronger vessel to rescue me, which was one of the first things he tried. He was stuck with me and I was stuck with him, but he still asked permission, and I said yes. He took over, shielded me from the rest of the pain and thirst, and he busted us out of that closet. Then he busted Mr. Baker a good one right in the nose."

Dean laughed, tight and high with a touch of hysteria. He kept it down, desperate not to wake Sammy. The kid didn't need to hear any of this. But, damn, that was hilarious. "He did, did he? God, I woulda paid good money to see that."

There was a smile in Jimmy's voice, too. "You were five years old at the time."

"Still. I wish there was video. That ugly bastard, thought he had a helpless kid locked up safe after he used him as a punching bag, and then that same kid breaks down the door and pops him in the nose. I hope that's not all Cas did to him."

"He didn't let me see. I think Dad might have a newspaper clip about the incident, though. Apparently Mr. Baker tried to press charges against the 'dangerous freak' who assaulted him."

"Even more hilarious." Dean shook his head, grinning at the darkness. "Next time Cas comes forward, remind me to shake his hand."

"Sure." Jimmy's voice was indulgent in the dark.

"And then you came and found us, huh?"

"Pretty much. I don't remember it well. Castiel used up all the strength he had finding your family and getting us to you. The next thing I knew I was standing in the rain beside this car, and I was the most exhausted I'd ever been in my life, so tired and cold that I could barely even feel how sore I was. Dad was pointing a gun at me, right through the rain, and his face told me that he would pull that trigger without hesitation."

Dean whistled, low and amazed. "Damn. Quite a welcome to the family."

"Yep. That's Winchesters for you."

"And now you are one. And we're traveling around the country teaching special kids how to control their powers so the Apocalypse will never happen."

"Yep."

They both laughed, low and warm and comfortable, surrounded by the rumble of the Impala keeping them safe.

They were both so relaxed, and Jimmy seemed so peaceful and open after sharing that story, that Dean dared to ask the question he really wanted to.

"What's it like? Having an angel in your head?"

Jimmy fell silent, staring ahead into the night. Dean drove, gripping the wheel firmly with both hands. The headlights of an oncoming car grew from pinpricks in the distance to widening discs, rushing toward them, until the light washed over them and vanished with a whooshing rush of air as the vehicles slid by each other at sixty miles an hour.

"It's...hard," Jimmy said at last. His voice was quiet, no longer as comfortable and warm as it had been.

"I said Castiel tries to shield the bad stuff from me, and that's true. But sometimes he slips. Sometimes he's too tired. Sometimes we get too close. We’re like oil and water in my tiny skull, usually, but sometimes we get shaken up, we mix together, and it's like falling into a lake while you're on fire. It's too hot, too cold, too bright. Too much.

"You wanted to know if I've seen anything of the future. The truth is yeah, I've seen a little. Just images, impressions. What I get the most clearly are Castiel's feelings, because they're the most human aspect of his experience. He doesn't see in the same spectrum as humans, you know that, right? Angels have far, far more senses than we do. Those images and impressions I get are… They’re beyond confusing. But his feelings, yeah, those I get. He learned them from you, mostly, a future Dean who's hard and scarred and broken on the edges, but still good. Still true and brave.

"Castiel doesn't dream, not the way humans do, but sometimes when he's tired, he slips. He goes away, or he takes himself away, back into this…this vast catalog of memories he carries. Certain memories he returns to a lot, sometimes on purpose, sometimes without meaning to. Sometimes I see those, or at least get a sense of what they’re about.

"Right now, he's resting. I can feel the warmth of the memory he's buried himself in. It's companionship and comfort and contentment. It might be from heaven, with his brothers and sisters, or it might be from the future, riding around in the Impala with you and Sam in 2009. I don't know. But he's peaceful and he likes it, wherever he is.

"But one of the bad ones that comes back a lot, yeah, it's a nightmare. It's the end. Everything has gone bad. You're dead, and Sam is...possessed. The other angels are all dead, all pulled down to earth and torn to shreds by powerful demons and other forces. Castiel is alone, and he's terrified. He's almost out of his head with it. And then... He makes a choice. He jumps backward through time.

"And you know the rest. It goes wrong. He ends up inside me as a ten-year-old kid. A demon that rode back with him kills my parents. And here we are."

Dean released a breath he hadn't known he was holding and remembered to blink just as his eyes started to water. The lights of Dad's truck bounced as he ran over a rough patch in the road, and the bright wash of another car's headlights poured over them again, there and then gone.

He didn't know how to respond to Jimmy's story. It was awful and amazing and scary all at once. He wanted to know more, so much more, but it was obvious that Jimmy had a hard time expressing it. Mostly, Dean was glad he'd tried.

"Thanks, man," he said after a bit. "I know you don't talk about this much."

Jimmy shrugged, a movement Dean more felt than saw in the dimly lit car. "It's not something I've thought to try to explain. It's just...my life. My weird, crazy, screwed up life. It never seemed necessary to put it into words."

"Not even to Amelia?" Dean smirked when Jimmy shifted uncomfortably. It was still fun to tweak his big brother over his adorably awkward romance, even after all these years. "I know you tell her everything."

"Kinda hard when it's all over email," Jimmy mumbled. "I tell her everything that seems worth talking about. But the supernatural stuff worries her, and I don't like doing that. We keep it simple."

"You're not keeping her up to date on the war efforts, huh?"

"Not so much."

Dean nodded thoughtfully, tapping his fingers along the wheel. In a lot of ways Jimmy was a soldier, drafted to the front lines, far away from his hometown and the girl he loved. Jimmy longed to return to her. And Amelia was waiting, Dean knew with supreme confidence. She would wait as long as she had to.

In the meantime, they sent letters. It had gotten a lot easier since the internet became a thing. Every town they landed in, Jimmy figured out where the nearest internet cafe was so he could go check his juno.com account as soon as possible. Maybe someday the Winchesters would be able to afford a computer and a dial-up service so he could do it more easily, but that was a dream for a more financially stable future.

As with any soldier in a war, Jimmy’s correspondence with Amelia kept him connected to civilian life. The letters and emails and occasional phone calls were touchstones he could collect and pore over again and again, dreaming of the day when he would be able to learn all of these things in person, when the war would be over and he could go home. It was no wonder that he didn’t care to discuss the details of the strange battles they fought, their desperate, secret war on the edges of society. Amelia was his lifeline, and she should remain untouched by the hardship and privation and doubt of a campaign that had already spanned more than a decade. It was a war Jimmy was fully committed to, but he didn’t want it to harm Amelia more than it already had.

A road sign flashed by. 221 miles to Colorado. After that it would be another five hours before they reached their destination in Colorado Springs. They were about halfway through the journey. Dean loved to drive, but the thought of nine more hours on the road made him force down a yawn. He and Jimmy might switch off later, though Dean’s fingers twitched around the steering wheel at the idea of someone else driving his baby.

And letting Cas drive didn’t even bear thinking about. There were some tasks that ancient angelic wisdom and experience didn’t translate to. Driving and cooking were two of them, and Dean was sure that if he hung out with Cas longer, he’d discover plenty more.

"So what's up with the next kid?" Dean asked. "Jake Talley in Colorado Springs, Colorado. What is it that makes him even more special than all the other special kids?"

Jimmy made a little humming noise. "I don't know. All I get from Castiel is some really intense feelings about the guy. Not really animosity, just...intensity. I think this kid has something to do with why the Apocalypse got set off. Gets set off. Did get set off, in the future we're not letting happen."

"Right." Dean nodded to himself. An even more important task to check off in a long, long lists of important tasks. "So we'll be even more awesome than usual when handling this one. Do you think there'll be a demon hanging around for us to exorcise so we can prove ourselves right away?"

"There has been one with each of the kids so far." Jimmy's voice didn't exude confidence, though. "Seven children of Azazel now, and each one of them had a close friend or relative possessed by a demon, watching over them. America at this point in history is supposed to be relatively free of demons, so it's been pretty bizarre, running across so many. But I guess if it makes sense for them to be anywhere, it would be guarding the future bringers of the end times."

"Just like there's an archangel watching over all the prophets, right?"

"I suppose."

Dad's lights were slowly getting smaller in the distance as the truck ran slightly faster than the Impala. Dean pressed his foot down on the gas, loving the way his baby revved up, g-forces pressing him ever so gently back into the upholstery. The dark landscape rushed by on either side, and in a few seconds they were keeping pace with John Winchester's truck again.

"Well, here's hoping everything goes as smoothly as it did with Lily," Dean said.

"Here's hoping," Jimmy echoed.

They sped on through the night, following the road to Colorado and Jake Talley.


	9. Book Three: Chapter 2

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day   
Book 3: The Children of Azazel

**Chapter 2: You See Me, It's Not Me**

Colorado Springs, Colorado was a medium-sized city about an hour south of Denver. The most beautiful aspect of it was the Rocky Mountains rising above the city, tall and blue and just about as majestic as anything Sammy had ever seen in his life. Pike's Peak was nearby, as well as a number of military bases. It was a pretty cool place to live, even if they were only going to be here for a few months.

They spent the weekend settling in. After arriving mid-morning on Saturday, it only took them a couple of hours to move their stuff into the cheap apartment Dad had found for them. Hardest to adjust to was the change in temperature and altitude—San Diego had been perfect, balmy and breezy, just the best place they could have possibly spent the winter. But it was March in Colorado, and their half-day drive had chopped the temperature in half.

Dad and Jimmy both had jobs at the Boeing plant, starting Monday, and they were anxious to relax as much as possible in the time they had. So Castiel took over in his usual ritual, moving around the apartment and painting the sigils, saying the blessings. Sammy went with him, reciting the passages he had memorized and trying not to get in the way. Dad and Dean were fighting with the central air, trying to get some warmth in the chilly rooms, and their two deep voices turned the air blue, battling Castiel's calm, peaceful recitations in a way that Sammy might have found hilarious if he wasn't too busy shivering and searching his mind for the next words to say.

"We should go to the school and bless it," Cas said when they were done, looking at Sammy with his serene gaze that always made Sammy feel like everything would be okay. 

"The factory, too," Sammy said, and Cas nodded. Sammy jammed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and turned to yell at his dad and brother. "Hey, can we take the truck? Or the Impala?"

"Don't let Cas drive my baby!" Dean hollered back, high-pitched with terror. Dad laughed and tossed them the keys to the truck. Sammy caught them in midair, reflexes just a touch quicker than Castiel's, chuckling at Dean's indignation.

Cas sighed as they hustled down the steps to the car. "I don't understand Dean's continuing distrust of me. I would not let harm come to his 'baby.'"

"Dean trusts you plenty," Sammy said. "Just not with complicated human technology, that's all. C'mon, wake Jimmy up. Or do you think I should drive?"

Cas grunted unhappily. "You aren't even old enough to have your permit."

"But I was driving by now in the alternate timeline, wasn't I?" Sammy poked him in the arm. "Come on, tell me. I was, wasn't I?"

"That's not important." They had reached the truck. Castiel stood by the driver side door, holding his hand out for the keys. Sammy dangled them just out of reach, eyebrows raised. Cas huffed out a breath. "Yes, you were. Now give me the keys."

Sammy dropped them in his palm, and Cas smoothly turned to unlock the door. Sammy watched him closely, but still had difficulty catching the moment of transition. It was there though, between one motion and the next, Castiel's body language shifting subtly from a stoic, straight-backed ancient warrior to a gentle, loose-limbed young man in his early twenties. When the jean-clad butt hit the seat and the two slender hands wrapped around the wheel, it was Jimmy in the driver's seat in more ways than one. 

He looked out at Sammy with his clear blue eyes, as if surprised to find him still standing there on the sidewalk, staring back at him. "C'mon, kiddo, let's go finish the blessings."

Sammy could only smile and comply. It still got to him, watching Castiel and Jimmy switch back and forth. The complicated dance of it was so strange, and yet so graceful, so quickly and easily done. Sammy couldn't imagine ever having to share his mind, his body, with another being. But Cas and Jimmy made it work. They did it because they had to and because they wanted to. Because they were Winchesters and this was their life.

And Sammy's life was all about making friends with a kid he didn't know and teaching him about the supernatural and how to be prepared for some pretty terrifying stuff coming up. It was a weird life, but it was his. He was a Winchester, and this was what they did.

X~*~X

"Yo, Jake!"

Jake Talley looked up and grinned, catching his friend's high five as he joined the group in the front yard of the school, feet crunching in the frost-brown grass. He blew out his breath, making fog in the chilly air, and the other guys grinned and jostled him. Andre demonstrated a lay-up, falling against Tyler as he came back down, and the guys fell over themselves, laughing and shoving. Jake's backpack shifted on his back, throwing him around with momentum, and he pushed Andre's shoulder with both hands to fend off his weight.

"Hey, look! New kids." Garrett pointed over at the parking lot, and the guys swung their heads over to look. 

It was two guys getting out of either side of a long black car that looked kinda like a hearse to Jake. The older guy was probably a senior, tall, crew cut, wearing a leather jacket and work boots, already grinning a cocky grin that told Jake that he expected to rule this school as soon as he entered it. The younger kid looked like a shrimpy freshman, snub nose, floppy hair falling over his eyes, a serious expression.

Jake's friends looked away after a quick glance, busy joking and shoving each other again, but Jake stood still, watching the new kids for a longer moment. He was a little more observant than most guys his age, a little more cautious, a little quicker to judge. It came from having a brother with mental issues who needed watching in case he felt like running out into traffic for the fifth time in one day.

Jake knew he was quick to judge, and he wasn't ashamed of it. Yeah, he could be prejudiced, but sometimes stereotypes were all you had to work off, and he needed to be on the look out. He needed to be able to tell someone's character by the way they dressed, the way they held themselves, the way they talked and moved and looked around. He prided himself on being good at it.

He didn't really care for the vibe he was getting from these two. The old car they drove, the classic rock blasting from the speakers before the older guy turned it off, their flannel shirts and heavy-duty jeans and shoes—it all spoke of a certain kind of culture to Jake, one he had once encountered in the deep South when his dad was stationed at a different base. Those boys looked like they ought to have a gun rack on the roof of their car.

They looked like rednecks, not to put too fine a point on it.

The younger kid started to move toward the school, marching quick and with a purpose, and the older one reached out to grab his shoulder. They faced each other, speaking in short, intense sentences. Jake couldn't hear what they were saying from this distance, but it was clear that the older kid was telling his little bro to do something, and the younger kid was rolling his eyes and shrugging his shoulders, telling his big bro to get off his case.

The older kid drew a breath as if preparing for a fight, then held something out to the younger kid at waist height, looking at him with raised eyebrows and a pursed mouth until the younger kid finally sighed and took it. Jake saw a glint of metal. The younger kid made the object disappear into his jeans, and Jake was sure he'd seen correctly. It was a butterfly knife.

These new kids were bringing knives into school.

Jake turned back to his friends, his own face grim, jaw clenched. Jake wasn't a snitch. He wasn't going to report the shrimpy freshman to the adults without proof that he was a menace and not just an idiot. But Jake was definitely going to keep an eye on him.

X~*~X

"Hey, can I sit here?"

Jake looked up, eyes wide. When he'd resolved to keep an eye on the new freshman, he hadn't expected it to be quite this easy.

The kid stood there, holding his tray in front of him, waiting to be invited to sit at Jake's table. Jake glanced around. His friends were looking at him, waiting for his cue.

He looked back at the freshman. The kid stared at him, wide-eyed and expectant, shifting from foot to foot. He didn't look like a crazed murderer. But then, Timothy McVeigh probably hadn't looked like a crazed murderer, either, before he set off that bomb and killed all those people.

Then again, maybe he had. Jake had seen pictures. That mofo was scary-looking.

"Why do you want to sit here?" Jake asked.

"Rhonda said this table is where all the army brats sit." The kid tipped his head back at the fat white girl who sat at the cafeteria door, placidly gnawing through her peanut butter and jelly. She was fond of gossip, that girl, and yeah, she knew where all the groups sat. "My dad is a Marine, so I thought we'd get along. I'm Sammy Winchester."

Jake hesitated, watching the kid for a moment longer, then came to a decision. "Winchester, huh? Buzz off, Winchester."

He turned back to his friends, who were laughing now, all facing inward at their table and effectively putting their backs to the new kid. Jake grinned at them, accepting their props for the sweet burn. He could hear Sammy's feet shuffling behind him in an embarrassed two-step, and then his footsteps moved on.

Jake told himself not to feel bad. He wasn't trying to be cruel, and he wasn't trying to instigate his friends to bully the new kid or anything. He just didn't want to sit at the same table with him.

Later he looked up and found the kid sitting with his brother at a table of older teens. Sammy was looking down at his tray, cheeks faintly red. His big brother glared at Jake across the cafeteria, methodically shoveling food into his mouth and staring almost without blinking, but when he saw Jake looking, he broke away. Jake turned to his friends, but after that he stole glances at the Winchester brothers every once in a while.

They watched him back. That made Jake the most nervous of all. These guys definitely had a redneck survivalist thing going on. Again, the image of Timothy McVeigh's hate-crazed face popped back into his head. He couldn't help it. The dead little kids made that incident kind of stick in Jake's mind. 

It wasn’t like Sammy couldn’t make other friends. The next day Jake saw him hanging out with some of the nerdy freshmen who always sat in the front of the class and raised their hands to answer questions. His big brother had no difficulty finding guys (and girls) to loiter with, either. As Jake might have expected, the older Winchester seemed to gravitate toward the seniors who liked to party. Jake’s dad had told him to stay away from that crowd, but Jake hadn’t needed the warning.

A couple days later, Sammy tried again. Jake and his buds were playing a quick game of football after school, mostly an excuse to throw the pigskin around and tackle each other. After they'd been playing long enough for Jake's lungs to burn, for the exhilaration of semi-controlled battle to have pumped his limbs full of fire, the new kid stepped up at the edge of the field of play, a hesitant grin on his face.

"Hey, can I play?"

Again, Andre and Garrett looked to Jake. They were down on the ground this time, wrestling over the ball, but they still paused to look to him the same way they had in the lunchroom. Their breath plumed in the air with the gusts of their breath, their grins of pleasure frozen in a moment of waiting.

Jake hesitated for a second, looking at the kid on the sidelines, who eyed him hopefully. Then he bobbed his head in a sharp nod. "Yeah, sure." 

Sammy's eyes lit up.

It couldn't hurt to play with the kid. It would even give Jake a better chance to keep an eye on him. But it didn't quite go that way.

Jake wasn't sure who started it. It might have been Tyler. It might have been him. But suddenly it wasn't really a game of football anymore. It was keepaway, and Sammy was the target.

It was just too easy. The kid was shorter than them—not by much, but enough. Jake and his friends, especially Tyler, were really good at lobbing the football over his head in a high arc that he could never reach. And Sammy didn't give up, running back and forth, trying to jump for it and failing every time. Garrett and Andre laughed, falling over each other in merriment. Manuel gave Jake a look that told him he disapproved, but he didn't try to stop it, either.

Then Sammy figured out what was going on. He halted, stock still in the middle of the grass, staring straight in Jake's eyes. He was panting and heaving, eyes wide, face pale with two bright red spots on his cheeks.

Jake caught one last throw from Tyler and let the ball drift to his side, staring back at Sammy, silent, ashamed. He hadn't meant to be cruel. It just sort of happened.

Sammy stood there for a moment that seemed to stretch out far longer than it should have, his eyes bright, his chest pulsing up and down as he panted. Then he turned and walked off the field, all without a word.

Jake turned his head to watch him go. Sammy's big brother was waiting there in the parking lot, his hands in his pockets, butt leaning on that big black car. He wasn't looking at Jake, just at Sammy. Jake was distantly glad. He didn't want to see the hurt and disappointment of a big brother looking in anger at someone who had been deliberately mean to his little brother. It was a look Jake had given to other people, and he didn't want to be on the other end of it.

Instead, Sammy and his brother just got into their car and drove away.

X~*~X

The Winchester family dinner table was full. Dad and Jimmy were home from work, both eating their chicken in tomato sauce with tired faces and drooping eyes. Dad leaned back in his chair, Jimmy forward with his elbow on the table, his fist propping up his head. Sammy was quiet, eating in small, careful bites. Dean was the only one who fully enjoyed the food, and it was his own creation. He called it Chicken Parmesan because it had chicken, sauce, and Parmesan, and though he knew full well that it wasn't the authentic Italian dish, he liked it. His family usually did, too.

"So how's it going?" Dad asked after a while, looking at Sammy with probing dark eyes.

They all knew what he was talking about. Usually by this point Sammy was well on his way to making in-roads with the targeted special kid or their family. He was just so darn likeable. Making friends had never been remotely difficult before. Dean frowned, chewing furiously at his current bite of chicken.

Sammy shook his head, not looking up at Dad. That was signal enough that something was off.

Dad sat forward, setting his fork down on his plate with a muffled clink. "Sammy?" He looked over at the other school-age Winchester, raising his eyebrows. "Dean?"

Jimmy raised his head slowly, taking notice of the change in atmosphere. Dean just shook his head. "Something's wrong with this kid, Dad."

Dad frowned. "What do you mean? Is he in trouble? Is a demon already controlling him?"

"He doesn't like Sammy!" Dean waved a hand at his little brother in pure frustration. "He really doesn't! I don't get it at all. Who doesn't like Sammy? What is _wrong_ with that kid?"

Jimmy smiled, slow and tired and affectionate. Sammy just rolled his eyes. "Of course someone was bound to dislike me eventually, Dean. They can't all go smooth as butter."

"Well, I don't see why not." Dean picked up his knife and jammed it viciously into his chicken, pinning it down with his fork and sawing off another piece. He stuck the piece of chicken into his mouth and chewed fast and hard, barely tasting it. "I don't see why anyone wouldn't get along with you. You're a great kid. You're the _best."_

"Of course he is." Jimmy's voice was slow and sweet. He blinked, and it was Castiel looking out at them with depthless love. "Sammy is a wonderful person. If the boy truly knew him, he would be ashamed of his hasty judgment."

"Yeah, that's what it is." Sammy sat up, straight and still in his chair. "It's judgment. The way Jake looks at us... I think he thinks we're dangerous or something like that. Or racist."

"That's preposterous." Dad smacked a hand on the table, his voice rough and gravelly with indignation.

Castiel nodded, both in agreement and amusement at John's instinctive protectiveness of his sons' good character. "Still, a judgment like that is hard to shake. We will need to approach this boy in a different way."

Dean pointed his sauce-covered knife at his big brother, tacitly giving him the floor. "Yeah, you got any ideas? Found any demons hanging out in the extended Talley network?"

Castiel sighed, shoulders slumping. "I'm afraid not. It seems that Sammy spoke truly—they can't all go as 'smooth as butter.'" The human idiom stumbled awkwardly off his tongue, prompting a smile from Sammy and a smirk from Dad.

Dean shook his head. "Well, that freakin' sucks."

"We'll just have to find another way," Dad said. His voice was low and strained, still fighting anger at the mere idea that his boys were racist. 

Cas's eyes sparked, and he opened his mouth to speak. Then a shiver ran through his frame, a brief toss of the disheveled dark hair, and Jimmy was in charge again, frowning, fists clenched on the table. "Don't be an idiot," he hissed, and his brothers and dad looked at him with raised eyebrows and puzzled expressions.

"No, you can't," Jimmy said. Dean and Sammy gave each other a nod. Cas and Jimmy were arguing again. It was usually hilarious to watch, sometimes freaky and disconcerting, sometimes just annoying. 

"Don't even think about it." Jimmy raised a hand and slashed it through the air as if his gesture could silence the being in his head. "You can't, Castiel, you just plain can't. It's not even that you shouldn't—you literally, physically can. Not. Do it. You can't show your wings. I know displays like that used to convince people, but you can't do it now. Your grace is too torn up."

Yeah, this instance was falling nearer to the worrisome end of the scale. Dean shared a glance with Dad, troubled and dark. Jimmy and Cas had always managed to work things out in their own weird, idiosyncratic way, but Dean and his father occasionally worried at each other about what to do if they couldn't. They'd never come up with any real solution. Even trying to mediate between the two was pretty much impossible.

Because of the peculiarities of Castiel's injuries, Jimmy could take charge of their shared body whenever he wanted to. Sometimes he did it by accident. If he chose to, he could keep Cas locked up in his mind indefinitely, and there'd be no way at all for anyone else to interfere. Jimmy was too much of a decent person to ever do something like that, Dean was sure, but still. The inequality of power between the human and the angel added another dimension of difficulty to their relationship.

"Just...stop it," Jimmy said. His fist was clenched on the table beside his plate, pressing down on the laminated wood as if he wished he could physically push the creature in his head. His eyes were screwed shut, his forehead wrinkled with the force of his effort. "Stop it, Cas." 

Jimmy almost never called him “Cas.” It was the other Winchesters' term of affection for him. Jimmy called him by his full name, out of respect or habit or something else, Dean couldn't tell.

"Stop, Cas. You want to, but you can't. You just can't. You almost tore yourself in half the last time you tried. It almost killed you. It almost killed _me._ Our nose bled for two days."

And there, the argument ended. Jimmy held still for a moment longer, his entire body taut and trembling with tension, then he gradually relaxed. His fists loosened, his shoulders came down, and his face smoothed out. He opened his eyes, a slow breath easing from his mouth, and looked up at his family.

"That got him, huh," Dad said quietly.

Jimmy nodded, even more exhausted than before. He leaned back, his rickety chair creaking, and let his hands fall loosely into his lap. "He... He's disappointed. Bitterly. But we can't fix this one. We've tried. There's no fix for it."

"There will be," Dad said, firm as granite. "Someday. We will find that demon and make him give back what he took from Cas. You know we will."

Jimmy nodded again, slow and soft. His expression was anything but certain. "I know. He still doesn't like being reminded that...that's he's broken."

And neither did Jimmy. Dean's heart gave a little wrench at the look on his big brother's face. He reached out without thought, grabbing Jimmy's shoulder in a hearty squeeze.

"We'll find another way," Dad said. He looked at them each in turn, Sammy, Dean, then Jimmy, with a long look for Castiel as well. Each of his human sons nodded in acceptance and belief. Whether Cas nodded, deep in the fortress of Jimmy's mind, no one but Jimmy knew. And he said nothing about it.

X~*~X

Dean had cooked, so it was Sammy and Jimmy’s turn for dishes after supper. Dad and Dean took a trip to the range to do some target shooting. They returned at sunset to find the apartment tidied, Sammy doing homework at the coffee table in the main room, Jimmy leaning on the wall beside the window and gazing out at the pale colors of the sinking sun. At the sound of the door and the men stomping inside, though, he turned around and gave them a smile.

Dad split off to clean the guns and put them away, and Jimmy motioned for Dean to join him at the window. Dean stepped over to him, curious. Jimmy’s face was more solemn than usual, a measure of pain lurking in the wrinkles around his eyes.

“You okay, dude?” Dean kept his voice low so as not to disturb Sammy.

Jimmy nodded, but Dean wasn’t sure he believed it. “It’s Castiel I’m worried about.”

Dean tilted his head. “Yeah?”

“He’s feeling pretty low. I’m going to step back so you two can spend some time together. He feels better when you’re around.”

Dean nodded readily. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

Jimmy’s eyes flickered shut for a second. Cas’s posture straightened and his hands fell to his sides as if he didn’t know to do with them. And he frowned at Dean, eyes squinting. Dean got it. Cas didn’t like being called out like a bitch by the guy who shared his head. You weren’t supposed to talk about how being around someone made you feel better—it was supposed to be implicit.

But Jimmy had a habit of just saying aloud things that most people preferred to communicate in body language and unspoken assumptions, or not at all. Maybe it came from having another being in his head since he was ten. It was impossible for Jimmy and Cas to hide anything from each other, so Jimmy didn’t have the same sense of personal boundaries that most humans did. But Cas still had some dignity, since he’d been in existence for thousands or millions of years or whatever it was.

Dean gave him a quirk of a smile. “Hey, man. You wanna go sit on the balcony or something?”

Cas nodded, slow and grave. Dean led the way through the kitchen that led to the sliding door. Cas paused at the fridge, opened it, a clinking of glass bottles. When he joined Dean on the balcony, he was carrying a case of beer.

Dean eyed it doubtfully. “You know I’m underage at this point in the timeline, right?”

Cas sat down in one of the broken patio chairs they’d scavenged from some garbage can and set the beer beside him on the concrete balcony. “I know you drink anyway.”

“Only at parties and on weekends.” Still, Dean sat in the other chair. He glanced in through the window to the kitchen table, where Dad was engrossed in his guns.

“John won’t care,” Cas said, which was a good sign that he was a bit messed up at the moment. He usually called him Dad. Dean knew it made their father both a tiny bit uncomfortable and a lot proud to have an angel call him that.

Cas lifted two beers from the case with one hand, the necks separated by his fingers, and flicked off the tops with an easy flick of his other thumb. Dean raised his eyebrows. “Cool.” He hoped Jimmy’s thumb wouldn’t hurt him later.

“Yes.” Cas handed Dean one open beer, then took a swig from the other, sinking back into his chair and staring out over the railing. Dean looked with him, across the city to the mountains and the sunset beyond. It really was a gorgeous sight.

“I didn’t know you drank,” Dean said.

“Only on rare occasions. Jimmy doesn’t care for it. I find that it affects me rather more in this body than it did in the other future. Probably yet another symptom of my mutilated grace.”

Cas set his empty beer bottle down and opened another one, the cap spinning off over the railing into space. Dean watched it go, his eyebrows so high that they hurt, and looked at the three-quarters bottle in his own hand. That was quick work.

“Hey, you got work tomorrow, you know,” he dared to object.

“I won’t get a hangover. That is at least one measure of blessing my father has afforded me.” Cas took a long pull on his bottle, Adam’s apple bobbing. Dean couldn’t help staring.

“Take it easy, man.”

“I’m not a man. I am an angel.” There was a weird intensity to the word, a tone Dean had never heard from him before.

“I know.” Dean reached over to put a hand on his arm. “Take it easy, Cas.”

To his surprised, it worked. Cas let the bottle drift down to rest on the arm of the chair. He stared over the city, unblinking. Dean shivered, feeling the chill of the spring evening, then took another drink of his beer. The concrete under his feet still held some residual warmth from the day, and it really wasn’t bad out at all. It was nice.

When Cas was on his fifth beer and Dean was on his second, Cas spoke again. “I don’t like being helpless.”

“You aren’t helpless,” Dean said. “You’ve saved me and Dad and Sammy more than once.”

“But I can’t do all that I should do.” Cas waved a hand in the air, loose and aimless, watching it flutter and fall and wander in the air like a leaf, or a feather. Or a broken wing.

“You do more than enough. For real, dude. You know things are better for us this time around. You know better than anyone else.”

“I ought to be able to do much more. I am an angel. Being unable to fly is…”

Dean was silent. He couldn’t imagine.

“I did fly. Once. At the beginning. Very briefly. From the house of that horrible man to your father’s car.”

Dean nodded. “Jimmy told me a little about that.”

“Your father fled us, thinking we were a ghost. I had to fly again to catch up.”

Dean laughed, startled, into his beer. It fizzed and bubbled, spurting around the glass, and he had to lower the bottle and sputter, leaning over to spit on the concrete. “That’s hilarious.”

“We must have looked dreadful. Jimmy was covered in blood and bruises, shivering in the rain. I was exhausted, fully depleted after the second flight. John had to carry us into the motel room where you and Samuel were asleep.”

Dean sobered. He took another swig of his beer, gazing over the city.

“That was the last time I flew.”

Cas finished his beer. He took the empty from Dean’s hand and opened two more bottles.

“We were friends, weren’t we?” Dean asked. “In the future that isn’t gonna happen.”

“In a way.” Cas turned his head to stare at Dean, and his eyes were bleak and distant. He was as relaxed as he ever got, tousled head leaning back on the frayed fabric bands of the chair. “I don’t know that you would have called us by that word. But I would have.”

“Was I a jerk to you? I bet I was a jerk.”

Cas shrugged. “You were yourself. You were Dean Winchester, the righteous man, a hunter of mad beasts, a brother and a son. I was an angel, an outside force, an intruder. A monster. I did more harm than good to you and your brother, especially in the first year we knew each other. I thought I was doing right. But you thought differently, and you told me so. Frequently. At the top of your lungs.”

Dean smiled. It almost felt nostalgic, a warm feeling that spread through his body not only from his beer. Nostalgia for a time he had never known, himself, but the tone of Cas’s voice, deep and rich and smooth, made it feel close enough to touch. He’d never seen Cas so loose, so comfortable. It was pretty cool.

“Did I ever get over that? I must have realized how awesome you are at some point. I refuse to believe that I could be a total idiot forever.”

Cas took another drink of his beer, but the pull didn’t last as long, and it didn’t seem as much like drowning. “Toward the end, yes. I believe you did.”

“Well, that’s good.”

They sat there, drinking their beers and watching the last shreds of sunset fade behind the frosted peaks of blue-gray beyond the city. Dean sighed in the twilight, content. Soon he was gonna need to go inside and pee, though.

“You’re still awesome,” he told Cas, rolling his head over to look at him. “You know that, right?”

Cas looked back at him gravely. He nodded, but it wasn’t as certain as Dean wanted. He poked Cas in the arm to make his point.

“No, I mean it. You are. This time we don’t just get to be friends. We get to be brothers, too. That’s awesome. Our family is the best, and I think it’s just great that you’re in it.”

Cas stared at him, his face almost blank, but Dean thought he read a yearning there.

“I do, I mean it. It doesn’t matter how busted up you are. We’re all busted up. But together we’re awesome, and so are you.”

Cas looked away. He finished one last beer, then set the bottle down.

“Don’t try to show your wings to Jake, man. You don’t have to. You don’t have to risk it. It’s early days, yet. We’ll find another way to convince the kid.”

Cas nodded. “All right. I won’t.”

It was good enough for Dean. He rolled off his chair and stumbled inside, burping mightily. Dad caught him inside the door and walked him to bed, grumbling all the while. At least he didn’t whack Dean upside the head. He understood that Cas had needed that drinking session.

Yeah, Dean’s family was awesome.


	10. Book Three: Chapter 3

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day   
Book 3: The Children of Azazel

**Chapter 3: Told Them All I Was Crazy**

Sammy stood on the curb in front of school, scuffing his feet in the grass. His backpack weighed heavily on his shoulders, and he tugged the straps in front, pulling it up on his back. The spring afternoon was warm enough that his sports jacket felt heavy, confining. This whole place felt heavy and confining, despite the clear blue sky and the beauty of the mountains in the distance.

Young laughter drifted to him over the grass, and Sammy moved his eyes to look over at the group, not moving his head. Jake and his friends were playing football again, running and jumping in the softer ground of the school’s sideyard. Jake’s figure was tall and slim, and his throws were straight and true, and the dark skin of his face glistened with sweat.

Sammy looked forward again, balancing his feet on the edge of the curb. Another bus pulled out and he watched it go, dark yellow paint momentarily gleaming white when the sun hit it at the right angle. He could have taken the bus, he supposed. But Jimmy was coming to get him. His shift at the Boeing plant ended at 3:45. It was just a bit of a drive to the school.

The laughter was fading, voices yelling good-byes and “see ya tomorrow.” Sammy resolutely didn’t look. More cars were pulling away, parents picking up younger kids, older students leaving on their own. The traffic jam in front of the school was clearing out, little by little. Soon it would just be Sammy standing out here, waiting alone.

“Hey. Winchester.”

He looked over, eyebrows arching in surprise. Jake stood several yards away on the sidewalk, watching Sammy with a wary expression. 

And…maybe…just a hint of guilt.

Sammy looked away, cheeks heating up. He still couldn’t believe he’d fallen for that stupid game yesterday.

“Where’s your big bro?” Jake asked. “Don’t you usually leave together?”

Sammy scuffed his toe on the concrete. “Dean’s not feeling good today.”

“Oh. Yeah, I heard there’s something going around.”

Sammy smirked down at the ground. Sure, if you called hangovers something that “went around.”

“Is someone coming to get you?”

He looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “What do you care?”

It was Jake who looked away this time, cheeks coloring, visible even under the dark pigment of his skin. He mumbled something about “just asking,” and Sammy looked at the dirt again.

He really wasn’t doing a good job of making friends with this kid. Here Jake was reaching out, and Sammy had pushed him away without thinking. It had been pure instinct. Even Dean’s loud declarations of how awesome Sammy was, even Cas and Jimmy’s steady support and Dad’s indignation on his behalf, even all that hadn’t quite wiped out the hurt of being made fun of the way Jake and his friends had done.

“Hey, who’s that weirdo?”

Sammy looked up. Jake was staring out over the parking lot, his face screwed up in fascination. Sammy followed his gaze. It was Cas, moving toward them with his usual calm, steady gait, his unblinking eyes, his strange way of holding himself just a little too stiff and straight. Most people wouldn’t notice it, the way Castiel was a little bit off from the norm, but for some reason, Jake had noticed.

“That’s my oldest brother,” Sammy said. Pride surged in his voice, strong and strident. He loved Cas and he didn’t care who knew it.

“Oh.”

Jake fell silent again.

X~*~X

Jake watched the oldest Winchester brother move through the parking lot. He was definitely older than Dean, but not that much older. College-age, maybe, but his face was still smooth and young, his eyes clear and bright. Still, there was something about him that seemed far older. Old and wise and weathered.

And the guy looked back at Jake, tilting his head to the side as if to study him better. His eyes were wide, and they watched Jake without blinking. It was definitely abnormal.

But Jake was used to abnormal. Abnormal was familiar and comforting. Abnormal was Jake’s little brother, Jerome, who could never go to regular school, who had special problems and special tutors and special needs.

Sammy’s older brother was obviously more high-functioning than Jerome. But still. The familiarity of that strangeness tugged at something deep in Jake’s chest.

Sammy didn’t seem to care that Jake was there anymore. He wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed or ready to flee if Jake got too close. He was just smiling at his big brother, eyes wrinkling up with pleasure at seeing him.

“Hey, Jimmy,” he said when the older Winchester was close enough, looking down at Sammy with warmth in his almost flat expression. “I can’t believe Dean let you drive his car.”

“Dean doesn’t have to know,” Jimmy intoned, and Sammy laughed, bright and high and delighted.

“Don’t worry, he won’t hear about it from me.”

The brothers turned away from the school and started walking toward the parking lot side by side. Jake watched them go, tightness gripping his chest. He might have misjudged the Winchesters.

Then Jimmy stumbled and started to go down.

“Whoa!” Sammy’s arms shot out to catch him, wrapping around his big brother’s waist. He managed to guide Jimmy’s descent, walking him back a step or two so they ended up sitting on the curb. Sammy’s hand pressed on Jimmy’s back between his shoulder blades, and Jimmy bent over with his head between his knees, his hands to his face.

Jake couldn’t help himself. He moved closer, trying to see what was going on.

A long string of blood dripped through Jimmy’s fingers, spattering on the blacktop in shockingly bright spots of viscous red, like bullet holes, jagged and wet.

“What did you do?” Sammy asked, his voice high not with delight, now, but frustration and dismay.

“It was not intentional.” Jimmy’s voice was muffled and low. “I told you, and Dean, that I wouldn’t try.”

“Yeah, you did.” Despite the harshness of his tone, Sammy’s hand was gentle on his brother’s back, rubbing in circles. “You said you wouldn’t. So what happened?”

“I…twitched.”

“Twitched?” Incredulity now in the kid’s voice, and Jake took a step back, unable to tear his eyes away.

“Yes, I twitched.” Jimmy huffed out a breath. “I said it was unintentional.”

Jake took a hesitant step closer. He scraped his foot deliberately on the blacktop, trying to get their attention. Sammy looked up, but Jimmy kept his head between his knees. “Are you guys okay?” Jake asked.

Sammy opened his mouth, and Jake braced himself for the same hard, hurt words as earlier. _What do you care?_ But the kid paused, and what came out was, “I don’t know.”

Jake bent down, turning his head to look in Jimmy’s face. Jimmy’s fingers were pressed to his nose, his eyes fixed on the ground. He looked sad and sick and a little scared.

“Does this happen often?” Jake asked. “Do you know what’s going on?”

Sammy hesitated, staring at Jake as if deciding whether to trust him. Then he shook his head. “Ca… Jimmy gets spells like these sometimes. It’s…it’s unpredictable. Sometimes it’s nothing and he’s fine in a few minutes. Sometimes it lays him up for days.”

“Man, that’s rough.”

Sammy looked surprised at the honest sympathy. Jake guessed he couldn’t blame him.

A rumble of a diesel engine, a wheeze of heavy brakes, and Jake looked up to see the last bus disappearing out of the school’s driveway. “Oh, damn it. That was my ride.”

Sammy snorted a laugh. “Guess you’re stuck, then. I’d offer you a lift, but I don’t think Jimmy should drive right now.”

“I can drive,” Jimmy said.

“Shut up, you,” Sammy said, and he continued to rub his back.

Jake stood there for a moment longer, watching them. Then he sat down on the curb next to Jimmy, sandwiching the guy between two fourteen-year-old kids. Sammy looked at Jake over Jimmy’s head, skeptical and surprised. Jimmy didn’t move.

“I could go in the school and call someone for you,” Jake said. “I’ll have to call my mom to come get me anyway, since I missed the bus. I bet she’d even take you home, if I asked her to.”

Jimmy’s shoulders jerked and he grumbled wordlessly into his bloody fingers. Sammy frowned at him. “No, you shouldn’t drive.” He looked at Jake. “We don’t want to cause trouble for you or your mom.”

“It wouldn’t be any trouble. My mom is really nice. And she’s got a soft spot for boys with…um…unusual problems. My brother, Jerome…”

“I don’t know what you’re insinuating…” Jimmy started to protest, but Sammy nudged him with his knee.

“Shut up, Jimmy.” Again he looked to Jake, his face open. “Go on.”

“My little brother is autistic. He gets funny turns, not like this, but… You know. He’s a weirdo. And so are you two. My mom will like you guys.”

“I am not that weird,” Jimmy said, still with his head down, still dripping blood into the blacktop.

Sammy laughed. “Dude, you are the weirdest person I know. And again. Shut up.” He grinned at Jake, bright and full, no shadow of yesterday to taint it. “Sure, call your mom. We appreciate the help, we really do.”

X~*~X

Jake's mom was super nice, and she took a shine to the Winchester boys right away. She clucked over "Jimmy's" bloody nose and made him sit in the front seat where she could keep an eye on him. It didn't seem to matter that he was in his twenties—to her he was a silly boy who really ought to be more careful with himself and his fragile schnoz. Cas sighed deeply, but did as he was told, accepting the handkerchief she forced into his hand and holding it to his nose. Jake and Sammy sat together in the back, sharing stories about their weirdo brothers. They both had plenty to tell.

When they got home, they found Dean lounging on the sofa in the living room. He didn't look very sick anymore. He perked up when they came in the door, alerted by the wide grin on Sammy's face that something had happened. Sam dumped his backpack on the floor and flopped into an armchair to tell him all about it.

When Sammy finished relating the story, Dean burst into laughter and sat up just so he could double over. "Oh my God, that is priceless!" He looked up at Cas, still standing by the door looking as wrathful as he could with a bloody hanky in his hand and a smear of red under his right nostril. "So it turned out that all it took to make friends with Jake was to have a guy with you looking crazy pathetic? Dude, that just figures."

"That's a simplification of the matter," Cas said, but his stuffy nose made the tone come out much more comically than he’d intended, and Dean doubled over again. 

Cas heaved a deep, put-upon sigh and shoved the handkerchief at his nose again. Then he swayed, just a little, but it was enough to prompt Sammy to jump up and grab his elbow. "Sit down, you idiot, for real. You 'twitched,' yeah right, you probably tore something, didn't you?"

He steered the angel to a chair, and Dean sobered, staring at him with a touch of sadness. "You really do need to be more careful, man."

"It was not intentional," Cas said, his voice high and peevish at being forced to repeat this so many times.

"Yeah, but still." Dean shook his head. "It's freaky when you just start bleeding for no reason." He couldn't keep the grin off his face for long, though. It snuck back, just curling the corners of his mouth at first, then bursting out in all its splendor. "Still the funniest thing I've heard in months, though. Poor Sammy, it really sucks that you tried so hard to make friends when all you really needed was for Cas to show up and bleed on the ground for a few minutes."

"It's not that funny," Cas said.

"Oh yeah? I think your opinion is in the minority on this one." Dean shared a wink with his little brother. "Me and Sammy both think it's awesome. How about Jimmy?"

Cas shut his mouth in a thin line for a moment, as if trying to trap the answer behind his sealed lips. But he was too much in the habit of being completely honest with his family. "Jimmy is highly amused."

Dean didn't ask Cas to have Jimmy come forward and share in their mirth in person. Other times he might, but they had all long since learned that when something was going wrong with their shared body, Cas insisted on staying in charge. He was able to shield Jimmy from any pain that way, or at least muffle it a good deal. 

Sometimes Jimmy made a fuss about it, saying he could handle the occasional stubbed toe, come on, but he always ended up giving in on this one. It just meant too much to Cas that he be able to protect Jimmy in any way he could. Penance, maybe, for the wrong he had accidentally done to him, for the months when Jimmy had been an abused orphan, forgotten and alone.

The thought made Dean lose his smile again, looking at his big brother in quiet contemplation for a moment. "Seriously, man, are you gonna be okay? This nosebleed seems like a bad one."

Sammy looked at Cas, too. "Yeah, it's been almost half an hour. Do you want some ice?"

Cas took the handkerchief away from his nose and looked down at himself, cross-eyed for a moment. Dean's lips twitched, threatening to smile, but he held it back.

After a moment, Cas put the hanky to his nose again. He'd obviously hoped that the bleeding had stopped, but nothing doing. "I think that might be wise.”

Sammy went to the kitchen, and Cas looked at Dean. His expression was penitent, which Dean didn't get at first. "Your car is at the school. I apologize."

Well, that explained his expression. Dean opened his mouth, about to chew him out, then closed it again. The guy just looked so pathetic, sitting there with his big eyes and his bloody kerchief, that Dean couldn't really be mad at him. 

He shrugged instead. "I'll get Dad to drop us off at school tomorrow and drive it home afterwards. You got the keys?"

Cas produced them from his pocket and tossed them to Dean. Sammy returned with a ziplock bag full of ice, and Cas leaned back in his chair and held it to his nose, closing his eyes. He blew out a small puff of air, and Sammy and Dean looked at him for a moment, then at each other, sharing their displeasure. They didn't like it when Cas was in pain. And it happened far too often.

"You gonna be okay, Cas?" Dean asked again, more quietly than before.

Cas hummed an assent. "I'm sorry. I know this frightens you."

"Don't," Dean said. "Don't think about how this makes us feel. We're worried about you. You don't have to worry back."

Cas opened his eyes, heavy-lidded and sleepy, to look at Dean for a moment. Then he closed them again. "That was uncommonly sweet, Dean."

"I'm an uncommonly sweet guy." Dean swung his legs over the front of the sofa and sat forward, studying Cas intently. Sammy sat on the arm of Cas's chair, watching over him. "Now answer the question. You gonna be okay? Did you...did you really tear something, like Sammy said? Your wings? Did you hurt yourself?"

"I'll be fine," Cas said. A note of frustration crept into his voice. "I wish I could tell you that everything will be completely repaired in a few minutes. I wish I could give you a time frame, even a guess. But I don't know, myself. As I said, I twitched. It was not purposeful. I saw the boy Jake standing near to Sam Winchester, and I remembered the young man Jake and what he had done—will do—will not do. In the alternate timeline. It...alarmed me. I reacted as if I could fly. As if I could draw my sword and protect your brother as I should be able to do. As I am meant to do. As I cannot, at this time, in this body."

He sighed again, long and slow, the sound sliding out of him like sand through an hourglass. This time it was not an expression of frustration and anger at the limits of his body, but sorrow and disappointment and regret and loss and grief. It wasn't funny anymore.

"I'm sorry, Cas," Dean said. "That really sucks."

Sammy, still on the arm of the chair, leaned down against Cas's shoulder and rested his light brown head against his big brother's dark one. Cas's lips curved in his version of a smile, and Dean couldn't help smiling, too, though it wasn't in amusement this time. Since the car accident last summer, since almost losing him, they’d become more tender and appreciative of Castiel. Jimmy, too. Sammy was better at physical demonstrations of affection than Dean was, but they both felt it. So Sammy leaned up against their big brother in wordless comfort, and Dean ached silently on the the other side of the room, and Castiel relaxed into the chair and closed his eyes.

Dean wanted to ask what the other, older Jake had done to make Cas so instinctively protective. It must have had something to do with Sam, other Sam, older Sam, in the timeline that they weren't going to let happen. But now was not the time, with Cas so sick and tired, with Sammy so close and restful against him.

It probably had something to do with the Apocalypse.

For now, Dean would sit here in the living room of their little apartment in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He would watch his brothers cuddle and smile at how adorable they were. He would resolve to keep them safe with all the force and depth of a vow. And he would keep that oath even if it cost him his life.

X~*~X

Now that they'd made friends with Jake, the next trick would be introducing him to the supernatural. 

All of the Winchesters puzzled over this problem. It had always been easy before (though creepy and disturbing). Poor Lily had been absolutely terrified the day Sammy and his family came over for dinner, and her little brother starting spitting black smoke from his mouth. That particular exorcism had even been relatively quick and painless, and it had still traumatized Lily and her family for life.

But what to do about Jake Talley? Despite the way he had warmed up to Cas (though of course he called him Jimmy the whole time), he still seemed a bit wary and on edge around the rest of the Winchesters. It wasn't like they could just tell him straight out that he'd been fed demon blood as a baby and now he was ear-marked for a demonic army that would be formed eight years in the future by one of Lucifer's hand-picked commanders. That would just be stupid.

Cas, of course, thought they should do just that.

"You've said that he likes me," Cas said, his hands resting loosely on the table in front of him. It was after dinner on a school night. The table had been cleared, Dean washing the dishes, Sammy drying. Cas and John still sat, relaxing after their heavy meal of meatloaf and potatoes. When the dishes were done Dean and Sammy would probably join them at the table, forming another one of the almost-nightly war councils the Winchesters had been holding of late.

"He has shown more openness and trust with me than anyone else, even Sammy." Cas glanced over his shoulder. "Sorry, Sammy."

Sammy shrugged. "It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Cas's wide gaze flicked back to John. "We could at least give it a try."

John shook his head. "You're not going to sit down with a kid almost a decade younger than you and explain that you're an angel from the future and you know he's under the thumb of a demon."

"It's a good way to get arrested," Dean piped up from the sink, splashing a dish into the water particularly hard.

"He likes me. Why would he report me to the authorities?"

"Yes, but why does he like you? Because you remind him of his little brother. Who has special needs. He's more likely to think you're actually, certifiably insane than really listen to anything you have to say."

Cas's jaw set, hard and stubborn. "He may think I'm eccentric, but he has no reason to doubt my sanity."

"Not now. You tell him all that, and he will have ample reason to doubt you. And ample reason to cut off all further communication with our family."

"I think you're underestimating him."

John quirked half a smile. "No, you think I'm underestimating you. You think I'm doubting your ability to convince this kid because I'm doubting you. And that's not it, Cas, you gotta believe me. I have every faith in you. But I just don't see this working. At all."

Cas huffed out a breath. "That's equivocation. You don't think I can do it, but it's not because of me? There's no need to twist words. I'm not actually special needs."

"Coulda fooled me," Dean muttered at the sink, then covered it with a cough and another large splash, dropping the last pan into the rinse water. He threw a dish towel over his shoulder and stepped over to sit down at the table, his hand finding Cas's shoulder almost by instinct.

"Come on, man. We'll find another way. Dad had an idea, remember?"

John nodded, already moving on to the next topic. He reached to the side table and pulled over a BLM map of the surrounding area. 

"There." He pointed to a spot off in Rampart Range, in the mountains a fair distance from Colorado Springs. But not far enough. "I think the gillyback is somewhere around there. It's time for a hunting trip. And it might as well be a family affair."

Sammy moved over from the sink, still carrying a dripping dish in his hand. He leaned over his father's shoulder to study the map. "Yeah, that ought to do it."

John smiled up at his youngest son. "Think you can convince him?"

Sammy shrugged. "You never know until you try."

It wasn't good enough for Cas. But it was what they were going with.

X~*~X

"Hey, Jake!"

Jake slammed his locker shut and looked up. Sammy Winchester was heading toward him, hands holding the straps of his backpack, big smile on his face. Jake couldn't help but grin back. Kid had an infectious smile.

"Hey, how ya doin', Winchester?" Jake extended his hand for a slap—the way he and his friends did handshakes. Sammy reciprocated, then went back to holding up his backpack.

"I'm good. Lots of stuff going on."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Hey, you doing anything this weekend?"

Jake pulled his backpack up on his shoulder, turning the motion into a shrug. "I don't know. My dad hasn't said anything to me about it. Mom might have a church thing. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering." Jake turned to head down the hall to his next class, and Sammy hustled to keep up with him. "It's just 'cause, see, I'm going hunting with my dad and brothers this weekend, and it's gonna be awesome, and I thought you might want to come."

"For real?" Jake gave Sammy the side-eye. He'd gotten the impression that the Winchesters were a stick-to-themselves kind of family. They didn't mind interacting with outsiders, even sought it out on occasion, but they were also fine with just each other for company. 

Besides that, Jake's heart didn't exactly leap for joy at the idea of going off into the woods with these guys. After meeting Jimmy, he had a little better understanding for why they were the way they were, but he still couldn't shake the idea that the family might truly be the kind of scary hillbillies that they'd appeared to be at first glance. They were okay here in the relative civilization of Colorado Springs, but who knew what they might revert to once they got out into the trees.

Sammy just nodded happily, oblivious to all this. "Yeah, for real. It's been a while and Dean's getting antsy for a trip. Mind you, we don't usually shoot anything. It's just an excuse to go tromp around in the woods for awhile, mostly. But it's fun. It'd be great if you could come."

"Huh." Well, that sounded slightly less terrifying. Jake warmed up to the idea a little. Sammy made it sound completely normal. It probably was, for him. "You guys go a hunting often?"

"Not often enough, if you ask Dean." Sammy's grin got even bigger. "You should see Jimmy out in the woods, though. You think he looks weird in a parking lot—you just gotta see him out in nature. Sore thumb doesn't begin to cover it."

Jake grinned at the image. He kinda would like to see that, actually.

"Yeah, okay, you're talking me into it," he said. "I'd have to get my dad's permission, though, and he's not as easy to convince."

"Hey, he could come along. The more the merrier. He and my dad would probably get along. Well, they might not. They might argue about which of their branches of the service is better—Dad always seems to be getting into arguments about that one. But you'll both have fun.”

Jake nodded. His dad liked those arguments, too. "Okay, I'll talk to him. Where exactly are you guys planning to go?" 

"Up in Rampart Range. It'll be gorgeous up there, even this time of year."

Jake halted in his tracks. Sammy made it a few steps farther, then turned around, eyebrows wrinkling. "What is it?"

"Isn't that..." Jake swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "Isn't that where those people got killed? Like, a bunch of them, a bunch of different times? It's been in the papers. And they died really weird, too, like...digested from the inside out or something."

Sammy hesitated for a second. His expression had fallen, looking exactly the way Jake felt when he turned in a test and only realized later that he had completely bungled a high-point section. Then a rush of words, "No, dude, it's not actually that close to there. We'll be fine. It's just a lot of hysteria. Newspapers gotta sell somehow—there's always hype in the headlines."

But Jake was already shaking his head. "Nuh uh. No way. I appreciate the invite, man, but there's no way my dad would let me go anywhere near where that freaky-deakiness has been going on. Sorry. You can count me out."

He kept walking, but Sammy stopped keeping up. Jake didn't look back, so he didn't see Sammy standing there in the middle of the hall, staring after him while the other students rushed around him. Then Sammy turned and headed to his own classroom, giving up.

X~*~X

Jake and his friends sometimes stayed after school or met in parks off the grounds to play Ultimate Frisbee, also known as Frisbee Football. They had to arrange rides beforehand, but their parents endorsed it because it didn't have as much tackling as in actual football, so there wasn't as much parental nagging about "you'll break your ever-loving neck." After Jake decided he liked Sammy, he became a part of the games, too, partly for redemption for how mean they were that first week. Jake and his buddies never played keepaway with him again.

Today had been a good one—their group got in two full games before parents started arriving to pick guys up. As teammates disappeared in ones and twos, the remaining boys kept tossing the Frisbee around until it devolved to just a game of catch. Then the third-to-last guy took the good Frisbee home, and it was just Jake and Sammy. Dean was supposed to come get them, but he was running late.

"He's probably sucking face with some girl," Sammy said, flopping down in the grass beside Jake, panting and swiping his sweaty hair out of his face. He had abandoned his jacket during the game, but now he dragged it over to himself from where he'd left it crumpled in the grass. "He'll come get us covered in hickies and it'll be so gross. I'm just warning you now so you won't be surprised."

Jake made a face. He was sitting in the grass with his knees drawn up, his arms resting on them so that his hands dangled in the air. He didn't seem as out-of-breath and sweaty as Sammy was. His muscles were bigger, too. Sammy glanced at his own skinny biceps with a frown.

"My parents won't even let me date till I'm sixteen."

"Yeah?" Sammy fiddled with his zipper, still not pulling his jacket on, just hugging the bundle of fabric to his heaving chest. "Is your mom, like, really religious or something?"

Jake shrugged. "Not really. I mean, yeah, she makes us go to church and she tells us to be good because Jesus is watching. But she doesn't lock up the TV or smack my dad for using bad language, so she has some give to her, too."

"But she really believes it, though? You know, God and the angels and all that? Demons?" Sammy watched him carefully.

Jake turned to give him a puzzled look at that one. "I guess? She doesn't really talk about that part much."

"She doesn't have any stories that she tells you guys? Like, 'I know angels are real because this one time I almost died and I literally felt someone save me,' or 'I know demons are real because I know I saw one once.' Nothing like that?"

Sammy almost held his breath. He'd kept his voice deliberately casual through the entire speech, which had been its own kind of test. But man, if this worked, if Jake's mom had ever told him about making a deal with a demon before he was born, or anything like that... This could be their in.

But Jake shrugged, looking even more confused. "I have no idea, dude. That's kind of nuts. Do lots of Christians have stories like that?"

Sammy sighed, staring up the sky. Another good idea that had completely failed to pan out in any way whatsoever. "I don't know. I was just curious, I guess."

"Why?" Jake's voice had softened a little. He reached out a foot to nudge Sam with his toe. "You look kinda sad, dude. What's up? Why are you asking all these questions about my mom?"

Hmm. This might be another way to get into it. Sammy blinked, then looked back to Jake, meeting his eyes. "My mom died when I was a baby."

"Oh." Jake shut his eyes, very slowly, then opened them. "Oh. That sucks."

"Yeah. And I'm sorry if I come off as creepy or something, asking about yours. I know my family is weird and it makes it hard to deal with us. But some of it we can't really help. My big brothers and my dad did their best to make up the difference for me. They had to do the things that Mom would have done for me, if she'd been around. But she wasn't, and I still knew it."

"That sucks. I... My mom is unbelievably awesome. If I could give you one just like her, I would."

Sammy grinned. "That's nice of you, dude. But no worries. I'm okay, really. I just wonder sometimes."

"Don't your dad and your bros tell you about her?"

"Well, yeah, of course. It's not the same, but they try. Jimmy and Dean both remember their moms."

Jake tilted his head, and Sammy could have kicked himself. Another stupid slip. "Moms?"

This one really wasn't that big of a deal, though. "Yeah... Guess we never mentioned. Jimmy is adopted."

"Huh. Okay." Jake looked away again. "You don't treat him any different."

"No. Why would we? He's our brother, same as me and Dean. He's been in our family as long as I can remember. Joined it soon after Mom died, actually. I was still a baby."

"Really?" Jake squinted at him with one eye closed. "Your dad adopted a new kid right after he'd lost his wife? That seems like kind of a weird time to be doing that. I mean, I don't know much about adoption, but I know it's a big deal."

"Yeah, but..." Sammy had honestly never thought about it before. He blinked, staring up at the sky. Cloudless and blue and chased with spring sun. "Jimmy needed us. I guess...I guess Dad did it because there was no else who could."

"Huh." Jake kicked his foot in the grass, scattering a clump of damp, lush green strands. "Maybe Jimmy has reasons for being strange."

"He does." Sammy's voice came out much more solemn than he'd meant it to. But it was entirely true. "His parents died right around the same time as my mom did. And he came to us, and he needed us. He was one of us before he even joined our family, really. And now... Yeah, I can't imagine us without him. He's a Winchester."

Jake was quiet, staring away into the distance. Sammy lay beside him gazing up at the sky and thinking things he'd never thought before. Both Castiel and Jimmy were Winchesters, and had been forever, as far as he was concerned. But that time when they first showed up, even the first couple of years—they must have been hella tough. On everybody. 

Except for Sammy, who was too little to understand any of it. He was kinda glad he'd skipped out on all that misery. He knew from casual conversations and occasional confessions that Dad had had a really rough time after Mom died. There had been drinking. Jimmy, not even a teenager at the time, had finally laid down the law. God, what must that conversation have been like? 

It had been hard, almost impossible, but Dad went completely sober for a few years until he had a real good handle on things. He still had an AA chip, treasured in the small jewelry box that had once belonged to Mom, the one personal, private thing that John Winchester had brought along on every single move in their long line of them. He placed it in the center of his dresser or nightstand or even a kitchen counter in every apartment, trailer, tenement, and broken-down house they had occupied. Sammy had never dared to open it, but he'd seen Dad, every now and then, sometimes months apart, open that box and pore slowly and lovingly over every article inside. A wedding band. A bracelet. A broken watch Dean had once given him that hadn't lasted a week before it snapped. That AA token.

Yeah, part of Sam was glad he'd been too young to understand during those really hard years. But part of him wished he'd been involved, too. The experience had bonded Dean and Jimmy and even Cas, and especially Dad, in a way that Sammy wasn't quite included in. He also knew it was partly for responsible for all of their continuing, completely aggravating, and utterly unjustifiable over-protectiveness of him. He was fourteen, damn it. He was old enough to shoot at the monsters they hunted, instead of always being shoved behind Dad and Dean and Cas.

"That's pretty cool, though," Jake said. "That your dad was able to adopt a kid who needed it, even when he was dealing with all that. It must have been hard."

"Yeah, it was." Sammy folded his hands behind his head. "Truth is, though, that Dad needed Jimmy almost as much as Jimmy needed him."

Jake squinted at him, ready to ask another question, but then Dean honked the Impala's horn. Sammy jumped up, swinging his jacket by one sleeve, running full-tilt for the car before Jake realized what was happening. "Shotgun!"

"Hey, no fair!" Jake squeaked out, already several yards behind him before he started running. They raced for the car, and despite his enormous, cheaty lead, Sam had some difficulty keeping ahead of Jake's long legs and grasping fingers. He won, though, slapping his hands on the hood of the Impala and laughing when Dean spazzed out and flipped him the bird from the behind the windshield, just as Jake grabbed the back of his shirt. 

And he and Jake poured into the car, still laughing and slapping each other, cheeks hot and red with their afternoon of exertion and their final run. Dean called them jerks and drove them home, playing an AC/DC tape and singing at the top of his lungs while Sammy covered his ears and Jake bobbed his head. And everything was cool, despite it all.

X~*~X

Jake kept an eye on the news the weekend the Winchesters went on their hunting trip. His mom stared at him in astonishment when he turned on the TV to watch the six o'clock news—something that had never occurred once in all of Jake's fourteen years of existence. He didn't tell her what was going on, but he couldn't help the way he jumped to check every little update, even so.

Nothing. No stories about more people getting chewed to bits up in the mountains. No news of dead bodies washing up in the river, bloated and distended and strange. No more sightings of a mysterious creature, there and then gone before hikers and rangers knew what it was. 

Nothing by Sunday evening, anyway. Jake still wiggled in his seat at dinner and stared at the ceiling for a while before falling asleep, wondering if it would be on the news the next morning. Two men and two teenage boys found dead in the wilderness. His friend Sammy dead, his weird, sometimes creepy, sometimes awesome family gone with him. And Jake hadn't even tried to come along, to get his dad to come, too. What if they died, and Jake could have done something? 

He regretted now shutting Sammy down so completely and abruptly. At the time he'd only been thinking of his own skin. Now he had time to wonder and regret.

But Sammy was in school Monday like nothing had happened. He didn't even seemed freaked out or tired or anything, no bags under his eyes, no scrapes or bruises on his arms like he'd been running through the trees getting smacked by branches and scratched by twigs. He was just there, same as always, kind of short and skinny and geeky looking, even in his army surplus boots and redneck clothes.

"How was the hunting trip?" Jake asked him between classes, still with a bit of anxiousness jumping in his throat, making the words come out choppy and weird.

Sammy smiled, sunny and clear, no hint that anything bad or weird had happened at all. "It was great. Dean got out of some of his need to shoot things, even though most of it was at random targets he set up. Dad got to organize his tackle box again, which he loves doing. Jimmy made scrambled eggs and didn't even burn them."

"Yeah?" No monsters. No attacks. Nothing at all. "I'm sorry I missed it."

"Yeah, me too. You woulda loved it. But maybe next time, yeah?"

"Sure, next time."

Sammy quickened his pace, hurrying to his next class, and Jake lengthened his stride to keep up. "Yo, Winchester."

"Yeah?"

"Next Saturday me and a bunch of the guys are gonna go to Wilson Park and hang out for the afternoon. They have a great field for Ultimate Frisbee there, and it'll be a bigger group than usual. Think you can come? Your big brothers too, if they want. It's a whole high school thing."

Sammy nodded, taking the time to give Jake another brilliant grin. "Sure. That would be awesome. Dean doesn't go much for team sports, but Jimmy will come and hang out with us."

"Cool."

Jake hurried to his next class, a grin on his face to match the one he'd seen on Sammy's. He was really looking forward to seeing Jimmy try to throw a Frisbee. He had a feeling it was going to be hilarious.


	11. Book Three: Chapter 4

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# Book 3: The Children of Azazel 

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**Chapter 4: Your Children Might Burn**

Saturday at the park. Jake was pleased to see both Jimmy and Sammy, and he waved at them with both arms across the field when he saw them approaching from the parking lot. They both wore jeans and white t-shirts, looking more like clean-cut kids from the fifties than their usual redneck style. The day was warm, the first almost-hot day of spring, so there was no need for plaid flannel and layers of shirts. The sky was clear, too, brilliant and blue, not a cloud in sight, and Jake was looking forward to a great afternoon of throwing Frisbees and refraining from tackling anybody.

He jogged over to meet them, one of their best flying discs in his hand. 

"Hey, Sammy. Hey, Jimmy. Glad ya made it!"

Sammy grinned back at him, broad and happy, bouncing on his heels, and Jimmy smiled. It was the first time Jake had seen one of those from Jimmy, and it was a little startling. The smile moved Jimmy's entire face, sparkling in his eyes and relaxing every muscle. He even stood less stiff and rigid than usual, his arms hanging loosely from his shoulders. He looked like a real boy.

"Hey, Jimmy. You wanna play some Frisbee?"

Sammy glanced up at his big brother, waiting for the answer, too. Jimmy looked over the field of guys tossing discs and warming up. "Are you sure I'm not too old? I don't want to have an unfair advantage."

Jake glanced over the guys, then turned back, waving a hand in dismissal. "Nah, man, you're good. C'mon. One game?"

"Sure. Just one. You're gonna have trouble keeping up with me."

Jimmy took the disc from Jake's hand and strode confidently out into the field. Sammy stayed behind to roll his eyes at Jake. "My brother the Frisbee stud. Don't worry—it's all talk."

Jake laughed and clapped his shoulder, then jogged out into the field. He didn't care if it was all talk—it was hilarious to see Sammy's weirdest brother so relaxed and self-assured. It wasn't a side that Jake would have suspected that Jimmy had, but it was really fun to see it come out.

Jimmy really wasn't half-bad at the game. He wasn't the best player on their team, but he was up there, and he threw some really good, sharp passes that had the other team scrambling to keep up. He had a preference for throwing to Jake and Sammy, too, which was bonus. Sometimes in a really big game like this, playing with older teenagers, it was tough to actually get a chance at the Frisbee. Jimmy made sure, with his tall frame and quick grip, that he got hold of the disc a lot, and he passed to Jake and Sammy more often than he didn't.

Their team didn't win, but it was close, and when the game ended Jake ran around the field with his arms above his head in a V-shape, yelling his joy in a long, unending, "Whooooooooo!" He passed each of his teammates in turn, getting them to high five him really high, heading last to Sammy and Jimmy.

"Winchesters! Yeah!"

Jimmy had to lower his hand a bit so Sammy could slap it, strong enough to make it sting. He turned to Jimmy, who was grinning that face-changing grin again, transforming everything on him to something young and relaxed and infinitely human.

"Yeah, man, gimme five!"

"We didn't even win," Jimmy said, still grinning, but he gave Jake five, way up high like he wanted, and Jake danced around in a circle, kicking at the grass.

"Yeah, but we were close, and most of the other team is way older than our team. We did awesome." He stopped spinning to look Jimmy in the eye, his head swooping a little with the sudden cessation of motion. "You gotta keep playing with us, dude. You're pretty much the best big brother ever."

Jimmy tilted his hand back and forth. "Well, I dunno about that. I think Sammy would agree that it's a pretty close contest between me and Dean." He reached over to ruffle the kid's hair, and Sammy glared at him and stepped back, smoothing it down again.

Sammy nodded, though. "Yeah, it's too close to call between Dean and Jimmy, really. The days when Dean doesn't call me 'bitch,' he usually wins, but he calls me that a lot, so..."

Jake laughed, throwing his head back, then looked at Jimmy. "But you'll keep playing, right? I know you said one game, but come on. I know you have more in you."

Jimmy shook his head, reluctantly but firmly. Jake noticed that his chest was still heaving, minutes after the game had officially ended. His pale face was flushed red from his cheekbones to his neck, and his dark hair glistened with sweat. "It was fun, man, but I'm gonna have to sit the next one out."

Jake groaned in regret, but he couldn't really blame the guy. He looked completely done. And he had been a madman out there for this game, throwing himself all over the field to snag the Frisbee. Jake nodded and backed off, pointing at Jimmy with one insistent finger. "But next game, right? You'll sit this one out and get the next one."

Jimmy huffed a breathless laugh. "Maybe."

"Okay." Close enough. Jake turned and jogged back to the rest of the team.

He thought he heard behind him Jimmy's voice, quiet and clear, "I'll keep watch for awhile," obviously meant just for Sammy. But that was a really weird thing to say. Jake must have misheard it.

Jake and Sammy threw themselves into the next game with abandon. Jimmy perched on a picnic table just off the field and watched them, his butt on the table, feet perched on the bench, hands folded in front of him. Jake glanced over now and then to see what he was doing. Jimmy sat there, straight and still, in the same position every time Jake turned to look. His posture was rigid and posed once again, like an action figure that could almost, but not quite, pass for the hero it was emulating. 

After a while Jake quit looking over, too busy trying to run for the Frisbee. The game was still fun, even without a tall, disc-snatching older brother passing to him constantly. Sammy enjoyed himself, too, leaping for the disc, rolling in the grass when he missed and laughing at his failures.

The action had moved down to the other end of the field and Jake was standing still, waiting for it to come back, when a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder, heavy and hard. He looked up, eyes wide, and Jimmy looked back at him grimly, bright eyes set like stones in his pale face. "Run." 

The word was as heavy and hard as his hand, and he was already dragging Jake with him, Sammy by his side.

"What, why..."

"Now," Jimmy growled, his voice a low pistol shot of command, and Jake ran.

The rest of the kids on the field stayed were they were, some of them watching the three running away as if wolves were at their heels. Jake didn't have the time to be embarrassed—Jimmy's voice had been too urgent, too compelling. He couldn't possibly have ignored it. It didn't matter why they were running—they just had to run.

Jimmy led him and Sammy to a picnic pavilion practically on the other side of the park. They dashed under the shelter of the open-sided wooden structure, sneakers pounding on grass, then the concrete slab. 

What sounded like a cannon burst shook the world, and the sky opened in a torrent that seemed like an entire ocean pouring from the sky at once.

Jake and Sammy stood under the shelter, staring out at the park that had turned in a split second from a bright, cloudless day to a gray, wet, water-logged mess. The kids still in the field yelled and raised their hands above their heads, running for the scarce trees and for cars in the parking lot. The game was abandoned in an instant—Jake could even see the neon pink edge of the flying disc laying out there in the grass, hard drops of rain bouncing off the plastic into the air.

"What the hell, man?" Jake panted, trying to get his breath back from that headlong sprint. "Rain? You told us to run because of rain?"

Jimmy leaned on the railing with both hands, peering up at the sky with a flat expression, his mouth grim. "I don't like the rain."

"Really?" Jake stared at him with eyes so wide they almost hurt. He knew a lot of kids who didn't like the rain. Some adults, too. But he'd never heard quite that tone, something that bespoke a deep and abiding disdain, almost hatred, instead of just a passing distaste for unpleasant weather. "That bad, huh?"

"I don't like this rain," Jimmy clarified, sparing a moment to glance at Jake before returning his glare out to the dark gray sky as if staring down a lifelong nemesis. "It came too suddenly. It's not right."

Sammy moved up next to Jimmy, putting his shoulder against his brother's, and Jimmy looked down at his worried face and instantly softened. "It will be all right," he said, much lower and gentler. He even ruffled the kid's hair again, but the gesture didn't have the same playfulness as it had before.

Jake shook his head, having trouble reconciling this Jimmy with the guy who had run around the field like a pro, completely at ease with his body and having a great time. This was the Jimmy he'd first met in the parking lot, the one who didn't hold himself quite right. It didn't make sense.

Maybe...maybe this was how Jimmy reacted to stressful situations? Jerome got weird when he was upset, too. It wasn't like this, but... Maybe there were parallels. Jake shook his head, trying to shake off the strangeness of it all. It was just Jimmy being Jimmy.

Jake looked back out at the rain. The weather report this morning had been completely open. Said it was supposed to be sunny and clear till at least Wednesday. Jake hadn't seen a single cloud in the sky, not even as he was running with the Winchesters all the way over to this obscure pavilion. He hadn't even known this shelter was here, and he'd been to this park dozens of times.

"Hey..." Jake started slowly, and Jimmy and Sammy both looked over at him. Their eyes were wide and round in their white faces that suddenly stood out in the darkness of the stormy day, and once again Jake had a hard time believing that they weren't biological brothers. They just looked too similar, too in sync with each other.

"Hey, yeah," Jake said. "This storm... Wow, it was sudden. There was no way any of us could have seen it coming. And we got under here free and dry, not a drop on us." He held out his arms as if in proof. The Winchesters' white shirts showed not a single drop of rain.

"We are indeed fortunate," Jimmy said cautiously.

Jake shook his head again. "No. No way, man. I don't believe it. How did we get under here right before it burst?" He looked at Jimmy, though it suddenly took a lot of courage to meet that steady blue gaze. "How...how did you know?"

For a moment they just stared at him, eyes wide, faces blank. It was as if they were frozen.

Jake swallowed, throat dry even as rain poured down all around them, filling the world with its rattle and roar, the mist of cold blowing in the pavilion and washing over them in waves that would have been refreshing if they weren't impossible. "You knew. You knew it was coming. How?"

Jimmy and Sammy looked at each other, and something passed between them. Jimmy raised an eyebrow, and Sammy bit his lower lip for a moment, then nodded, slow at first, then again, sharp and certain. They looked back to Jake, and Jimmy gestured toward the picnic tables in the middle of the pavilion.

"Let's sit down. I'll tell you, I promise. It will be the truth. And I will beg you to keep an open mind and try to believe me."

"Yeah, sure," Jake said, moving toward the table. He trusted Jimmy, weird as he was. He was sure it would be easy to believe, no matter what it was that the guy had to say.

He was wrong.

They didn’t start slow, take their time to work up to it. Jimmy and Sammy sat next to each other, Jake across from them. The Winchester boys both folded their hands on top of the table, sitting shoulder to shoulder, looking at Jake with those solemn expressions and innocent eyes. They were the most brotherly brothers he’d ever seen, even if their coloring was different—Sammy golden-haired and green-eyed and lightly tanned, Jimmy dark-haired and blue-eyed and pale from working indoors.

“We’ve been debating about whether or not to just tell you,” Jimmy said. “I thought you would believe me. Everyone else said it was a bad idea.”

Sammy rolled his eyes. “You’re simplifying.”

“Slightly.” Jimmy gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Would you like to tell him or shall I?”

Sammy waved a hand. “No, no, go ahead. It’s your story.”

“Just spit it out!” Jake said, as frustrated as he’d ever been in his life. “What, are you some kind of psychic? A weather wizard? Are you secretly Storm from the X-Men?”

Jimmy looked him straight in the eyes, unblinking and sincere. “No. I am an angel of the Lord.”

Jake leaned back, his hands limp on the table in front of him. For a moment his mind was completely blank, empty of questions and even thoughts. It was like being hit with a two-by-four right in the face. The impact set everything to zero for a bit.

Jimmy watched him carefully. “My true name is Castiel,” he said. “Jimmy is my vessel—I dwell inside him. You’ve met us both, and you’ve marked the difference. I’ve seen you doing it. Looking at us. Thinking. You know that what I’m saying is true.”

Jake shook his head, then couldn’t stop shaking it. He jumped up from the table and started pacing back and forth. The rain surrounded the pavilion in a solid gray wall, pounding against the roof, the edges of the concrete. The noise of it seemed to fill his brain, making it that much harder to think.

The Winchesters didn’t move. They sat at the table, watching him pace.

“No, no, I knew you were weird. I knew you had issues. I didn’t know you were actually a mental case.”

Jake whirled to Sammy, pointing at him. “You…you believe this, too? You’re as crazy as he is?”

Sammy grimaced. “I wouldn’t say I’m as crazy as Cas. He’s kinda special. But yeah, I believe him. I know it’s true. I’ve seen what he can do.”

“What he can do?” Jake looked at Jimmy. Castiel. Whatever. “You mean he can do stuff besides predict impossible storms? Or cause them, or whatever he did?”

Jimmy-Castiel-Whatever stared back at him, cool as the air blowing in on them from the torrential rain. “I saw it coming. I have senses beyond what humans are used to. I was only observing passively, otherwise I might have known it was arriving earlier and allowed us to get to better shelter.”

“At least this way you avoided a bloody nose,” Sammy said, and the creature that called himself his brother looked at him and gave a slow nod.

“Yes, I did. I didn’t want you and Dean fussing over me for days on end again.”

Sammy chuckled and shoved his arm, dislodging Jimmy-whatever’s careful pose. Jimmy sighed and rearranged himself, looking back to Jake.

Jake stomped forward and put his hands flat on the table, leaning forward into the guy’s face. “You say you’re an angel? Prove it.”

“He can’t,” Sammy said, and Jake swiveled his head to stare at him. Sammy didn’t flinch. “It’ll hurt him. What he’s done already will have to be enough.”

“Hurt him? Why?”

The supposed angel shifted in his seat at this, looking uncomfortable for the first time since this conversation began. Sammy explained it for him. 

“His angel-body, which isn’t really a body, he calls it grace, but anyway. Cas’s real self was wounded years ago, right before he joined our family. He keeps trying to fix it, but he can’t, because… It’s too much to get into. Believe me when I say that he can do amazing things. But when he does, it lays him out flat. Even accidental discharges of his power give him these awful bloody noses. You saw one. You know how bad it was.”

Jake stood back from the table, his hands balled into fists at his side. He desperately wanted to run, to get away from these weirdos and their ridiculous words, their serious faces. He needed to find some place where he could sit alone and try to understand exactly what was going on here, exactly what the truth was. But the rain poured down all around them, and as agitated as Jake was, he still would rather not be soaking wet and shivering in his boots while he tried to figure this out.

So, after a moment of consideration, he sat at the table again. He looked them both in the eye, one after the other, and they looked back at him. They didn’t look like lunatics. They didn’t exactly look angels, either, but who was Jake to judge?

Jake drew in a deep breath, then took the plunge. “Tell me everything.”

It went on for quite a while. Jake had a lot of questions.

“So when you went on that camping trip up where all those people got killed…” Jake held his hand to his forehead to stave off the threatening headache. “You weren’t hunting rabbits.”

Sammy nodded. “We were hunting the gillyback. Nasty thing. Like a living… Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. We killed it.”

“I was worried about you. I watched the news, hoping I wouldn’t hear anything about more dead bodies up there. About you being dead.”

Sammy winced. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have worried. We were the dangerous ones in that situation, not that thing. It was no match for the four of us.”

“Don’t you mean ‘five of us?’” Jake glanced at Jimmy-Castiel.

Sammy shook his head. “Jimmy doesn’t fight or kill. Cas took care of that part. Jimmy really did make scrambled eggs, though. With bacon. It was awesome.”

Castiel nodded solemnly. Toward the beginning of the conversation he’d had Jimmy “come forward,” as they put it, to talk to Jake and try to help Sammy and Castiel convince Jake of what was going on. Jake hadn’t been able to ignore the differences between the human and the angel. Now that he’d seen them both consecutively, and heard the Winchesters’ lengthy explanations about how the weird arrangement worked, he was finding it a lot easier to believe. Jimmy and Castiel had a lot in common, and they were pretty good at imitating each other, but if you knew what to look for it was impossible not to see it.

There were two people in that body. Sharing it. Talking to each other inside their skull. Taking turns to do the physical stuff. It was beyond disconcerting even to contemplate, much less live it, but already Jake was sort of getting used to the idea. Sammy and Castiel (and Jimmy) made it seem almost normal. Jake supposed it was normal, to them.

“But you wanted me to go with you,” Jake said. “And you were planning on hunting a monster the entire time?”

“Yeah. You would have been safe, I promise. We just wanted to show you the truth about the world, because it’s important that you know. There’s stuff going on that you need to be prepared for.”

“What?”

And then they got into that whole thing. That was even worse. By the end of it, Jake just wanted to go home and take a nap and forget everything about this afternoon. Castiel looked regretful and Sammy was grim, and Jake got the feeling that Jimmy was glad he didn’t have to be the one telling a fourteen-year-old-kid all about how he’d been irrevocably twisted by demon blood when he was an infant. But all three were in agreement that Jake needed to know, he needed to understand.

Jake wanted to tell them they were wrong. He would have been better off never knowing any of this. It was too much. It was going to crush him.

But there was Sammy, this skinny little white kid, sitting straight and still on the bench, his chin up, his eyes calm. He had known about this for a lot longer than Jake had, had been carrying the weight of it for years. Heck, his family hunted monsters on the weekends. And he was fine. If he could do it, Jake could too. Right?

This was where Jake realized that he had passed the point of no return. He believed them. It didn’t even take any effort now. He just knew that what they were saying was true. No need to run off and think and figure it out and make logical arguments to himself about how it was too much, too detailed to be all made up, how it explained everything he’d ever thought was weird about the Winchesters. He believed them. He was now completely and totally part of their world, whether he wanted to be or not.

Sammy looked at him with deep sympathy in his eyes, and it occurred to Jake for the first time that he was very young. They were both young. They were just kids. So was Jimmy, really, not quite ten years older than them, an adult by the world’s measure, but he was a kid, too. When stacked up against angels and demons and the ancient struggle between heaven and hell, they were all children.

“I’m sorry,” Sammy said. “I wish we didn’t have to tell you all this. I wish it wasn’t true. As much as you’re wishing that right now, believe me—I’ve wanted it way more and for way longer.”

Jake nodded, his head in hands. His skull felt heavy in his palms, almost too much weight to bear. “I know.”

Castiel’s eyes, too, were large and regretful. “I know this is difficult to take in. And it pains me to have to press such enormous burdens on such young shoulders as yours and Sammy’s. But trust me when I say that it is much better for you to know now what is up ahead, so you can be prepared for it. These powers will manifest eventually, with or without advanced warning. Foresight is better than hindsight.”

“I can’t believe my mom would do that,” Jake said in a small voice. Sammy had told the story of how his mother had made a deal with a demon before he was born, which allowed this leader of Hell—Az-something—to come into his room when he was an infant and infect him. They hadn’t explicitly said that Jake’s mother had done the same thing, but he could put two and two together.

“She was probably under terrible pressure when she did it,” Castiel said gently. “Mary Winchester agreed to the bargain to save the life of the man she loved. Your mother might have been in the same sort of circumstances. We can’t know exactly what happened. But please don’t look poorly on her now. She is still the same person you know. One mistake, no matter how egregious, does not negate a life well lived.”

Jake nodded, slowly, wearily. He was abruptly exhausted, wanting nothing more than to put his head down on the raw planks of the picnic table and go to sleep. Even the rain seemed softer, not pounding down on the roof with the force a hail storm, but pattering all around in a continuous rush of flowing sound. 

"What am I gonna do now?" he asked.

"You will continue to be yourself," Castiel said. "That is the first and most important thing."

"But we'll need you to help us convince your parents of what's going on, so they can help protect you," Sammy said. "It would have been easier if you and your dad had come on that hunting trip, but we'll figure something out."

"Mom... Mom must know already."

Castiel hummed thoughtfully. "Unless she has suppressed the memory or convinced herself that it was only a dream. But yes, she may be our ally in this."

"It's usually a lot easier," Sammy said. "There's usually a demon hanging out somewhere around, and Cas and Dean exorcise it or kill it or whatever, and then everybody's on board. After you've seen an exorcism, it's pretty hard to deny the existence of demons."

Jake raised his head from where it had been drooping to look at them again. "You've done this before."

Sammy nodded. "A bunch of times. We're collecting addresses and phone numbers. We'll put you in touch with the others."

"It is good to have allies," Castiel said.

"Good to have brothers, too," Sammy said, nudging his arm with a brilliant grin, and Cas gave him a tiny, barely-there smile.

"Good to have brothers," he echoed.

Sammy sat up and looked around. "Hey, the rain is letting up."

Jake straightened, following his gaze, and so did Castiel. The sheets of rain were lightening, becoming filmy and translucent. The world outside the pavilion was no longer curtained by dark gray. Even the breeze was more refreshing than freezing, now. 

The park was drenched and saturated, all colors made brilliant by the sheen of liquid that coated them. The grass seemed greener than green, almost too vivid to belong to the earth, and the spring flowers that hadn't been beaten down by the torrent were splashes of brightness in the green and gray. 

"We could go home," Jake said, hearing the note of hopefulness in his voice. There was a lot still to do, a lot that needed figuring out. He didn't know how they were going to tell his parents, how they would convince them. He didn't know, yet, exactly what the Winchesters were going to teach him so that he could protect himself and his family in the future. The more they told him, it seemed, the more he realized that he didn't know.

But the first hurdle had been passed. They'd been trying for weeks to find a way to tell him the truth, to initiate him into the world of the supernatural. And they'd succeeded.

"Yeah," Sammy said cheerfully. He stood up from the picnic table and stretched his limbs, walking over to the edge of the pavilion to peer out. "I can't wait to tell Dad and Dean about this afternoon. They're not gonna believe it."

Castiel sounded almost smug. "They underestimated Jake."

"Underestimated you, more like it."

Castiel shrugged at that, like he hadn't wanted to say it himself, but since Sam had, he was okay with it. It was such a strange image on the perpetually serious and severe creature, and yet so utterly fitting, that Jake burst out laughing. He laughed so hard and so violently that he doubled over and almost dumped himself onto the ground. The laughter was like a blast of wind, blowing away all the mixed-up thoughts and data and emotions that had cluttered his head. It was like being freed in an instant from a bad cold that filled his sinuses and weighed his chest down, making it hard to breathe. He gulped in fresh air and shot it out in bursts of hearty laughter, and felt like he was floating.

When he came back to himself from the sudden delirium, Sammy and Castiel were looking at him with bemused expressions.

"Okay, Chuckles, I think we can take you home now," Sammy said.

Castiel nodded. "That would be wise."

Jake looked around, his chest aching, still darting out little pellets of laughter like hiccups, popping out of him one after the other. The rain had let up almost completely, just a fine mist still falling gently from the sky. The day was beautiful once again, the sun shining through the water. If he faced the right way, he knew he would see rainbows.

"Yeah, let's go," he said, weary and complete in a way he'd never felt in his life. Like he'd been filled to the brim and emptied, a vessel now washed out and prepared for whatever came next.

Castiel led the way to the car, stepping around the puddles in the grass with a high, mincing step that made Jake think of cats, graceful and controlled, but disdainful of the mess caused by the rain. Sammy walked with Jake behind his angel-brother, chattering continuously about something Jake paid no attention to. He hummed and nodded in the right places, though, and Sammy didn't stop talking.

When they reached the parking lot, Castiel's stance and posture changed, turning more relaxed, less fluid. His heels popped off the pavement with youthful briskness, and he splashed through a shallow puddle without noticing it. Then he pulled out the keys for Dean's car, letting them jingle in his hand as they crossed the final distance to that long, black beauty, and Jake understood. Jimmy was the one who drove. Another accommodation, a trade-off of responsibility. A small gesture, but it all came crashing in on Jake once more.

This was real. This was really happening.

Jake stopped in his tracks, letting the Winchesters walk ahead of him. Jimmy slid into the driver's seat and started the car, leaving his door open to let in the fresh smell of the rain as he fiddled with the radio. The harmonic strains of some old folk group mingled with the growl of the car's engine.

Sammy opened the passenger door but didn't get in right away, standing there watching Jake across the pavement, his eyebrows raised. "You coming?"

"I...yeah." Jake looked around. Some of the kids they'd been playing with were starting to emerge from hiding places under trees and play equipment, looking up at the sky with shocked expressions. A lot of them were soaked, pulling at wet t-shirts and flapping them as if they would be able to get them dry in the newly emerged sun.

"Yeah, I'm coming. I'm just gonna say bye to some of my boys. Okay?" 

"Are you okay? You're not... Um. You're not freaking out anymore?" Sammy fiddled with his hands on the top of the door, not quite able to meet Jake's eyes.

Jake took a deep breath and grinned as naturally as he could. It took some effort, but he did mean it. "Nah, man, I'm cool. Don't worry about it. We're good. Everything's good."

A relieved smile lit up Sammy's face, and Jake knew he had done the right thing. Everything was cool. Jimmy gave him a smile and a thumbs up through the windshield, and Jake smiled back. He liked Jimmy. He liked Castiel, too.

"I'll be right back." Jake gave them a nod and hurried off. 

X~*~X

Jimmy leaned back in the driver’s seat, fitting snugly into the worn contours where Dad and Dean had sat for many hours and many miles. Sammy slid into the passenger side, leaving his door open. Jimmy’s favorite old Peter, Paul & Mary tape was in the player, Dean’s AC/DC and Metallica and Led Zeppelin consigned to the glove department while Jimmy had the keys. Dad had specifically gone to rescue that tape from the crash of Jimmy’s car last summer.

Sammy knew Jimmy missed his old Ford Tempo. Jimmy treasured his rare opportunities to drive the Impala, though he never said so aloud or complained about not having his own car. Sammy noticed, though.

“Hey,” Sammy said. “Tell Cas that was a great idea. Bringing a storm out of the blue sky like that and predicting it before it came. Probably the least traumatizing way we could have convinced him. We’ll have to remember that for next time.”

A cloud passed over Jimmy’s face, pulling his mouth down in a confused line, and he gave Sammy an unhappy look. “Castiel didn’t cause that storm.”

Sammy sat up straighter, his sense of peace dissipating just as the rain was already burning off in the renewed sunlight. “He didn’t?”

Jimmy shook his head. He sat forward and turned back the key, cutting off the children’s rhyme Mary was singing at the moment. “He didn’t lie about that. He was just passively observing, like he said. You really thought he could raise a storm without an almighty gusher of blood erupting from our nose?”

“I don’t know, I thought…” Sammy faced forward. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “I thought it was a great idea. Something obviously supernatural that wouldn’t cause any harm. But now…” He tilted his head to look at Jimmy, eyes widening. “What does it mean? If Cas didn’t do it, who did? Or what?”

Jimmy shook his head. “We don’t know.” A soft, troubled sigh slipped out—a very Jimmy-like sound. Cas’s few sighs were much more huffy and exasperated. He was kind of a grumpy angel, sometimes. “Castiel was just keeping an eye out, that was all. He wasn’t expecting any danger. By the time he realized what was coming, he had just enough time to grab you and Jake and run us into that pavilion before the storm hit. And then the business with Jake started, and he didn’t risk using a touch of power to stretch his senses out more fully. By the time he had a chance, the opportunity had passed.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think…” Sammy paused at Jimmy’s smirk. “He’s mad, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he’s basically scolding you right now for assuming that he would lie, even for such a noble cause.” Jimmy’s voice was amused, but Sammy knew that Cas’s would not be.

“Well, it was… It was clever.” Sammy kicked the console in front of him, slouching down in his seat. “It seemed like a Cas sort of thing. When he can’t fight something physically, he thinks his way around it.”

“That’s true. He’s a smart guy, our angel.”

Quiet fell in the car again, both of them watching the park, waiting for Jake to return. Sammy could imagine Cas settling back down in Jimmy’s mind, mollified by the compliments but still grumbling quietly out of principle.

“But what does it mean?” Sammy asked. All he could think about was that sudden rain, so brutal and hard and viciously cold. “A storm like that. We all know it wasn’t natural.”

Jimmy frowned. “Yeah. Cas says storms like that usually herald the presence of some kind of heavy hitter. A few weather demi-gods could have done it, but most of them don’t have much power in the US. It’s more likely to be demons, or even angels, though none of them are expected down here for at least another ten years. Or…” Jimmy paused, taking time to work up to this last possibility. “It could be an omen.”

The brothers shared a long look. They didn’t have to say anything else.

Sammy craned forward to look out the windshield, watching the sky. It was clear and blue once more, yet felt as ominous and overbearing as if it were crowded with dark gray clouds shot through with lightning. They weren’t done in Colorado Springs.

Not by a long shot.

**End of Book Three**


	12. Third Interlude: You Lift Me Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy and Castiel's car accident was more than it appeared to be.

**Coming Down on a Sunny Day  
Third Interlude: You Lift Me Up**

Northwest Ohio  
June 22, 1996

Drip...drip...drip...

Jimmy's eyelids twitched, still closed. A dull awareness of pain was spreading through his consciousness. He hurt. His right side, especially, ached with a deep, abiding pain. As he woke further, other sore spots began to compete for attention—his legs, his cheek, his right upper arm. Indeed, his entire body wasn't faring well.

And that...that constant, annoying...drip. A drop of water fell in the middle of Jimmy's forehead, and he wrinkled his face, trying to ignore it, trying fade back down into unconsciousness. It came again, cold and wet, spreading across his skin in a thin puddle. Another drip, icy cold piercing through to his brain, and Jimmy gasped, eyes flying wide. He was awake.

He was awake. Jimmy tried to turn his head to see where he was and almost screamed when pain erupted in his neck. Oh, God have mercy, he hurt. He hurt. What had happened? What was this weight in his abdomen, hot and heavy, holding him down? In the chill of his surroundings, the deep aching frigidness that seeped into his bones, Jimmy began to shiver. That hurt, too.

His teeth chattered, and Jimmy blinked, realizing that his eyes had started to slip shut again. He had almost fallen back into unconsciousness, even as he fought to stay awake now, knowing that he must, because...because...

Because he was dead if he didn't.

Jimmy lifted his head despite the shriek of pain from his neck and forced his eyes to focus. Green, brown, splintered white. Gray sky above. Water dripping in a miserable leak down from something higher above, landing on his head. Jimmy gasped, trembling in every limb with cold and shock.

Shock. He was going into shock. He had to keep conscious, he had to get to safety, or he wasn't going to make it.

His eyes focused on an object several yards away, and Jimmy could have cried. It was his car, his beloved little Ford Tempo, a mangled wreck of red-painted metal and shattered glass all but wrapped around several small trees. The windshield was punched through by a split tree trunk. Somehow, miraculously, Jimmy had been thrown free. How? Looking at that wreck, even from this distance and with his mind sluggish and unfocused, he knew he should be dead.

Jimmy lay in a rough cradle of broken branches and hardy bushes, pine needles and splintered wood scratching at every inch of exposed skin. He hurt everywhere, and he could feel blood oozing from several bad scrapes and cuts. Sharpest, though, was the pain in the ribs on his right side. He'd probably broken a few, definitely bruised almost his entire chest. Breathing took great effort, and it would have been worse if he weren't so cold, so numb.

Castiel. Castiel must have saved him. Jimmy let his head fall back again, blinking up at the sky, at the steady drip of water falling into his face from a bundle of branches above him. Castiel must have thrown them out of the car just before it hit that copse of trees, or they would both be dead.

But where was he? It was unheard of for Castiel not to take over in crisis situations like this. 

Castiel was silent in his head, and the realization frightened Jimmy more than any other part of this terrifying waking already had. He'd spent more of his life with Castiel than without him, sharing every moment, every plan, every thought, and he felt roaringly empty without the angel there lighting up his brain.

 _Castiel? Where are you?_ Jimmy closed his eyes again for a moment, not to flee consciousness, but to search inward. He pushed his awareness back into his own mind, looking for the burning ball of liquid fire that was his angel, his savior, his friend and brother and comrade in arms.

 _Castiel?_ Jimmy pushed onward. He was not used to this, to searching inside his mind. Much more often, he wanted space from the angel and was glad for any sense of separation between them. Not this time. The longer it took, the more panicked and desperate he felt.

Finally, he found it, a spark of piercing fire hidden in the back of his soul. Castiel had never seemed so small, so indistinct. Jimmy felt no personality there, just a hint of light that he knew could be, should be bright enough to burn. He approached with great caution. In his distant, physical body, his heart was in his throat, a tight, hard ball of fear and questions.

_Castiel? Are you okay?_

The spark was... Jimmy didn't understand. He might have described it as buzzing or vibrating. That was the only sort of word that made sense, though there was no physical movement in this place. Or maybe...fuzzing. It was fuzzing in and out, as if Jimmy perceived it through a camera lens unable to focus on it.

Another bolt of shock tore through Jimmy, and his physical body choked on air. Castiel was dying. His spark was about to vanish at any moment.

No, no, no. He couldn't. He couldn't go. They still had far too much to do.

 _Castiel!_ Fully panicked now, Jimmy lunged forward and wrapped his spirit around that tiny spark, holding it safe from the darkness outside. It hurt. Even dying, that spark was bright and powerful. It was like trying to hold a match as it burned down to the fingers. It was like trying to cradle a drop of molten glass.

Jimmy pressed forward, inward, unmindful of the pain. He had to get in there. He had to touch Castiel, communicate with him, hold on to him. He had to figure out what was going on and how to stop it.

_Castiel, Castiel. Please talk to me. What happened?_

By wrapping himself tightly around the angelic spark, forcing their spirits to touch once again, Jimmy finally was able to get a sense of Castiel. He felt the undefinable thing that was Castiel and no one else, a touch that Jimmy knew as well as he knew the curious tilt of Sammy's head when he read something interesting or Dean's cocky grin when he met a pretty girl. It was truly Castiel, and a flood of relief washed through Jimmy at the knowledge. His brother wasn't gone. Not yet.

But still no words, no communication. All that Jimmy could sense from Castiel was an immense and discordant rush of suffering and trauma. Good Lord, poor Castiel had been hurt yet again, and why, why did this keep happening? Anger poured over Jimmy's spirit, a helpless and impotent rage that shook the inward space like an earthquake of red and orange. It was strong enough to permeate to the heart of Jimmy, still wrapped tightly around the spark of Castiel.

Castiel abruptly stopped shivering, just for a second, as awareness filtered in to him that Jimmy was there, holding him, trying to talk to him. Had he been in a physical body, he would have been gasping, fluttering his eyes, trying to look up. Jimmy felt the attempted motion and froze himself where he was, the sunburst of anger gone as quickly it had come, replaced with the icy blue of anxiety and concern.

_Castiel? Can you hear me?_

_...yes..._

Even on the mental and spiritual level, the response was barely perceptible. Jimmy didn't know whether to be less worried or more.

_You're hurt. Again._

_...yes..._

_What did you do?_

If Castiel had expended his power for some stupid reason, Jimmy swore to God, he would... He would do something. He really would.

_...not...me..._

_Then what was it? What happened? Please, dude, I know you're out of it, but I have to figure out what's going on. What can I do? Talk to me._

Silence. The roaring rush of suffering was back, overwhelming Castiel's ability to speak. Jimmy pulled himself in even tighter, trying to take some of the pain into himself. Castiel had shielded him hundreds, maybe thousands of times. It would only be fair if Jimmy could do it just once.

It didn't seem to help. Or at least, Jimmy couldn't take on the pain. But Castiel's spark brightened as if strengthened by the contact, as if just the knowledge of Jimmy's nearness and concern was helping him to bear up under the strain.

_...hard to talk..._

_Show me then. The last thing I knew, I agreed to let you drive for a while because we were on a straight road with no turn-offs and it seemed safe enough. It obviously wasn't. What happened? Did somebody run into us?_

A moment of silence. This time, though, Jimmy could feel that Castiel was still active. He was trying to gather up the correct memory so he could share it with Jimmy, pushing it across the now very thin barrier between them. But just as Jimmy's shock-numbed physical limbs were sluggish and slow, Castiel's traumatized grace was fumbling, struggling to complete a task that should have taken no more than a split-second of thought.

Finally, Castiel managed to shove over a bundle of memory. It wasn't isolated to just the crash, though. Jimmy received a variety of scattered images and impressions that he already had from his own perspective.

They had traveled to Ohio to visit the home of Anna Milton, one of Castiel's angel sisters who had chosen to fall. She was only a little younger than Sammy, an eleven-year-old girl with red hair and shining eyes. Jimmy and Castiel had watched her from a distance. They had no business involving her in the Apocalypse, not now, not ever. But when the Winchesters moved to Pennsylvania a few months ago, Castiel hadn't been able to stop thinking about her.

Jimmy had put up with his silent yearning and stoic homesickness for as long as he could stand it, then finally said at supper one night, "Hey, Dad, me and Castiel are gonna take a weekend trip to Ohio. That okay?"

John Winchester had been surprised, but agreed readily. None of the Winchesters even asked what the trip was about. Castiel had never wanted to take off on his own before, but they all knew that there was plenty about the future that he hadn't bothered to tell anyone, and they weren't shocked to learn that he had loose ends to tie up somewhere. So Jimmy had packed a day bag, checked the Tempo's fluids, and taken off.

They had watched Anna going on an outing with her parents to the local zoo, always careful to keep a distance and avoid being noticed. Jimmy had enjoyed the day and thought that it would be nice to take Sammy to this zoo if they were ever in the area. He'd let Castiel stay in charge most of the time, but they hadn't communicated much, and Castiel had kept his emotions separate.

Now, in the memories, Jimmy witnessed exactly what the day had meant to Castiel. He and Anna had been friends when she was an angel, or as close as angels got to having friends. They had been in the same garrison. They had fought side by side. When she had been appointed to command the garrison, Castiel had been proud in the distant, almost impersonal way that angels could be proud. He had been shocked and horrified and grief-stricken when she removed her grace and chose to fall.

Now, seeing her again, his emotions had been much more complex. Castiel had fallen himself, in a way, and he had a much better understanding of what her motives might have been. He missed her. He wanted to see her again. And he feared what might happen to her—what would happen to her—if they did not succeed in averting the end of the world. Even now, a decade before Azazel would set his plan in motion, she could be made a pawn if demons ever realized her significance.

They would have to keep their distance, never give any enemies a reason to think she was important. It would have been smarter not to have come today, though they'd taken every precaution to avoid being spied on by both demons and humans. Castiel still felt guilty being here. He didn't dare even to try to ward her house, for that could draw attention in itself. 

Now, seeing all this, Jimmy heaved an inward sigh. It drove him nuts when Castiel felt guilty for things he couldn't control, but he hadn't had much success yet in talking him out of it. It was just part of Castiel's personality, apparently. An annoying part.

Once he had finished sifting through those images and impressions and emotions, Jimmy finally found the more relevant and pressing memories—the road. Jimmy had fallen into a light doze soon after Castiel took the wheel, hypnotized by the monotonous gray asphalt of the two-lane highway leading back to Pennsylvania, the regular, rhythmic hum of the tires passing over the man-made cracks the Ohio highway department put in their roads.

Castiel's attention had not wavered from the road for second, though, concentrating fiercely on the task he had set himself. He was determined to become a good driver, no matter how long it took, no matter how uncomfortable and out of his element he felt when dealing with human machinery. They were taking a different route away from Anna's house than they had taken to get there, the better to avoid any attention, and he needed to take every care to make sure they did not stray.

A flash of red spray paint on the road ahead drew Castiel's attention, and his forehead wrinkled as he squinted at it, trying to make it out before they drove over it. It looked odd, not like a tagger's symbol or the highway department's utilitarian markings. He was tempted to use a touch of grace to strengthen his human perception, but he knew Jimmy would scold him for giving them a nosebleed for frivolous reasons, so he refrained.

Then, too quickly, they were upon it, and Castiel recognized what it was too late to do anything about it. No time to brake, to swerve around it, and Castiel's heart screamed in sudden dread. It was a demonic trap, and he could not avoid it.

The car ran over the spray paint, and Castiel's grace went haywire. It was like a human being hit by a taser, jolting every nerve, agonizing every pain receptor. No, worse—it was like being hit by a lightning bolt, one that nearly tore Castiel limb from limb. With every iota of strength within him, he fought to hold onto his awareness. He had to do something, he had to save them, he had to save Jimmy...

Castiel forced his eyes open in time to see the dense copse of trees and bushes rushing toward them. They were going to hit it at highway speeds. It was going to kill them both. Castiel held his breath, closed his eyes, and _leaped..._

The demonic trap had not succeeded in tearing Castiel apart, as much as it had tried to. But using his grace so soon afterward almost did. Castiel could feel himself breaking at the seams. He pulled himself close and small and tight, tight, tight, burying himself as deep and as hard into Jimmy's psyche as he could do it. Then the agony washed over him, and he could deny it no longer.

The pain in the memory was so intense that Jimmy reeled back from it as from a violent physical push. It almost succeeded in thrusting him out of the mental space and back into the waking world, but he tightened his grip on Castiel with grim tenacity and refused to be expelled. He had a much better idea now of what had happened, but still no certainty of what he was supposed to do about it.

_Castiel? Can you still hear me?_

_…yes…_

_I understand what caused the accident. It was a trap. Someone set it for us. For you._

_…the…demon…_

_Yeah, I think that’s what happened. That creep really has it in for us._

_…Anna…_

_Don’t worry about her, man. If the demon had wanted to do something to her, he would have. But all he did was use her location to set up some traps on the roads around the area, hoping you would blunder into them. And we did._

_…sorry…_

Jimmy ached. That unnecessary, self-destroying guilt. Now wasn’t the time, but he was going to have to talk to Castiel about this later. Again.

They had much more urgent matters to attend at the moment. The spark of Castiel blurred again, losing focus, seeming even smaller, dimmer. Terror jolted through Jimmy, and he wrapped himself tight around his angel-brother once again. Castiel wasn’t suffering just because he’d been hurt and injured. The trap hadn’t been a one-time hit. This was ongoing.

It was still killing him.

_Castiel!_

_…here…_

_Castiel, hold on. That thing on the road, it’s latched onto you, isn’t it? It’s draining your strength._

_…yes…_

_It’s killing you. Oh, Castiel, I can feel it killing you. What can I do? There has to be something I can do._

_…don’t know…_

_Don’t say that. I know you’re hurting, you’re having trouble concentrating, but you gotta think. Come on, man, tell me what to do._

_…can’t…_

_You can! I know you can!_

_...hurts..._

_Please, Cas!_

The nickname, the reminder of Dean and Sammy and Dad, finally had an effect. The spark of Castiel flared, a pulse of awareness and power. Castiel would do anything to keep that family, their family, safe. Including whatever it took to save himself.

_...disable..._

It was the first note of hopefulness Jimmy had heard from Castiel. He yearned toward it, his entire being given over to listening, to trying to understand.

_I need to...to disable the trap?_

_...yes..._

_Tell me how, Castiel. Just tell me how, or show me, or whatever you need to do to make it clear for me, and I'll take care of the rest. One last push, and then you can rest, I promise._

_...I trust you._

The last sentiment wasn't words so much as it was an outpouring of Castiel's spirit, his faith and admiration and love for Jimmy, his immediate willingness to place his life in Jimmy's hands, his certainty that Jimmy would do everything he could to save him, and if he couldn't do it, it simply couldn't be done. Jimmy did his best to embrace Castiel in his own affection and loyalty and appreciation for all the angel did, all he was, silently vowing to be worthy of that trust.

One last push of images. The first was the representation of the demonic spell in the road, the evil sigils and runes that had trapped Castiel's grace, bound him to the destructive force, and were currently tearing him apart. In Castiel's perception, it glowed dark red and sickly white with power, like the fires of hell. Then an image of the knife in Jimmy's boot, the one Castiel placed there every morning. The knife that had killed Mr. Baker five years ago. Then the image of the trap again, now with several lines carefully and cleanly scratched away by the knife. The aura of power was gone with those cut lines, and the trap was useless.

All Jimmy had to do was scratch through a few lines of paint. He could do that. He could definitely do that.

_Thanks, brother. Don't worry. I'll take care of it._

_I know._

With the last of his strength, Castiel gave Jimmy a mental push, thrusting him out of the inward, spiritual space of their shared mind and back into the physical world. Only when he surfaced, gasping, did Jimmy realized that the push had been entirely necessary. He had never delved so deep before into the realm of the incorporeal. He might not have been able to get out on his own, or if he had, it would have taken far too long.

Castiel was dying. They had no time to spare.

Jimmy forced his eyes open just as another drop of freezing water fell into his face. He drew a shuddering breath, trembling in every limb. He was even colder and more numb than on his previous waking, but at least the pain had subsided to a dull roar. The shock was deadening his feeling, leaving him aware only of his cold, his weariness, his desperate desire to close his eyes and fade out again.

But he couldn't. He had to move. He had to save Castiel. Jimmy groaned and pushed his arms down at his sides, trying to lever himself up into a sitting position. He couldn't do it. He couldn't raise himself even an inch. His arms gave out before he'd made any progress at all.

Jimmy sucked in a sobbing breath. Even that pathetic effort had roused the soreness of his arms and hands again, making him aware of every scrape and bruise, every bone and tissue that had been rattled by his impact with this rough bed of broken trees and scattered vegetation. His eyes lost focus for a second, and he raised his right hand in front of his face, forcing himself to look at it. His arm and his hand shook uncontrollably.

His skin was deathly white, running with the icy rain that persisted in leaking from the sky, slow and steady as a dirge. A scrape on the inside of his wrist stood out shockingly red against the paleness, oozing a thin line of blood that trailed down his forearm in a sickening curl. It made him want to throw up.

Jimmy's strength gave out once again and his arm fell to his side. His hand scrabbled in the leaves and bracken and pine needles, searching for something to hold onto. He hurt, he hurt so badly. He would have thought those months in the house of Mr. Baker should have taught him to tolerate pain, but of course the mind did not work like that. The mind forgot how bad pain was, hiding the truth of it from the body. Memories could not convey the full feeling, otherwise they would paralyze the body anew. And Castiel's persistence in shielding him had given him no chance to build up tolerance in his present body.

It didn't matter. He had to move. He had to get to the road.

Jimmy's right hand found something to grab, a slender trunk or branch that didn't shift when he pulled on it. He wrapped his hand around this lifeline as tightly as he could, then gave everything he had in one desperate flex of his arm, his chest, his body. His ribs lit up in agony and a scream tore from his throat, echoing to the gray clouds above, but he did it. He managed to roll up on his right side, and now he could blink, squinting through the drizzle, until his eyes finally focused on the road.

He could see the obscene splash of red that was the demonic trap. It seemed very far away, though Jimmy knew distantly, with a logic that he could not quite believe, that it couldn't truly be more than fifty feet or so. The road was deserted, no motorists or dwellings nearby that he could call on for help, even if he'd had the strength to raise himself up to wave or yell. He was alone.

Jimmy rested for a moment, panting out his pain into the wet bracken under his cheek. Then he slung his left hand over to join his right, clamped onto that blessed, solid piece of wood. And he pulled again, succeeding in dropping his body the rest of the way onto his stomach.

His entire chest exploded in pain, a starburst of orange and yellow behind his eyes, stealing his vision and his breath. This time, he didn't scream. He had no energy for it. After a moment, Jimmy raised his head again, blinking, choking for air. He could see his arms ahead of him, his hands still gripping the branch with white knuckles. Beyond it, the green grass of the verge beside the road, the ditch now flowing with gray-brown runoff from the endless rain, and the road itself with that evil red paint.

He unpeeled the fingers of one hand from the branch and pushed that hand forward and over the edge of the pile of vegetation that had broken his fall. He found another grip, and he pulled, dragging the rest of him a few inches away from the depression where he'd landed. Then the other hand, letting go one finger at a time, his knuckles creaking with the cold and strain, and Jimmy forced that hand forward too, a little farther than the first one. He found a grip. He pulled his body forward.

And again. And again. Inch by inch, one hand at a time, Jimmy dragged himself out of the copse. Eventually his sore legs and knees woke up a little, and he dug those beneath himself, too, pushing with them as his hands pulled, making just that little more progress toward the road. He got out of the brush, into the grass.

The going here was easier because he did not have to drag himself over so many obstacles, but harder because there weren't as many objects to grip with his hands. Jimmy wrapped his fingers around clumps of wet grass, rough and sliding against his palms, and dug his nails into soggy clay and dirt. The mud caked his elbows and clung to his chin as it dragged over the ground. He didn't care. He was almost in a delirium by now, focused only on that splash of red, blinding through the rain.

Jimmy had no idea how he got through the ditch. Later, he couldn't remember doing it. Jimmy was inclined to believe it a miracle, because there was no way he could have done that on his own.

But at last, he reached the road. Jimmy found himself lying on the narrow shoulder, gasping like a beached whale. He was soaked head to foot with dirty water, his feet still trailing into the ditch barely above the filthy stream of runoff. Before him, taking up the entirety of his vision, was the red blot spread across the road like malignant tumor.

It wasn’t as large as he’d expected. In Castiel’s memory, and in his own imagination, the demonic snare was enormous, stretching across both lanes of the country highway. In reality, it was no more than three feet across, though in Jimmy’s current condition even that size was unbearably huge. In his mind flashed the image of the lines he would have to cut, and he saw that he would have to drag himself even further to complete his mission. His arms trembled at the thought.

First, though, he had to retrieve the boot knife, and even that was easier said than done. Jimmy’s leg had lost all ability to move on its own, and he had to bend himself double on his side and grab his jeans with his icy hands. He pulled his knee up to his chest, then stretched along the length of his shin and found the handle of the knife with fingers that did not quite want to grip it. It was like trying to string a bead while wearing winter gloves, his hands were so numb and heavy. At last he succeeded, though, and he dragged the knife along the asphalt up to the level of his face.

He had to rest for a moment then, staring at the knife in front of him, the cold, pale knot of his fingers wrapped around the handle. It was a graceful little tool, slender and plain and ordinary, as humble and unpretentious as everything else about Castiel. Jimmy almost never handled it, letting Castiel deal with this part of their life. His fingers knew how to hold it, though, even in their weak, benumbed state, and the thing felt natural in his hand.

Jimmy wondered what it might be like if he did handle the weapons. If he learned to use this knife in defense of his brothers and the world. Would he be good at throwing it? Better with close-quarters combat? It had never been something he cared to explore, and his family had not asked that of him, respecting his more gentle and pacifistic nature. They had always thought that Castiel would be able to do the fighting for him.

But the events of today threw that into question. What if Castiel was incapacitated again, and Jimmy was forced to stand alone against some terrible adversary? What if it fell to him to save the life of Dean or Sammy, or even Dad? Jimmy wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his inability, his unwillingness to learn how to fight caused harm to fall on any of his family.

This was a question for another day. Jimmy raised his eyes from the knife, forcing them to focus on the red runes, the first line he had to break. Right now, he had a task. He didn’t need to use this knife to fight or kill. All he had to do was scrape away some paint.

Even that was almost beyond him. Jimmy’s mind focused down to a single point, narrowing in time to each small step of the task he had to complete. He did not allow himself to think about the enormity of what lay ahead, the need to drag himself to another part of the trap, and another, and another, before he was done. First this. First this movement, then that.

Jimmy moved his hand to the line he must cut, the metallic ring of the blade against the asphalt cutting through the endless patter of the rain. He did not try to raise the knife above the road far enough to avoid making that awful scraping, dragging noise—he could not afford the energy. In small, economical movements, he forced the knife to reach the spot it must go, and then he began to scratch at the paint.

It took longer than it should have, but at last, the line broke. There was an almost audible snap, echoing in Jimmy’s ears, though he knew that the sound was probably not physical, that it was probably his imagination filling in the gaps and giving him the sense of accomplishment he so desperately needed in order to keep going. Still, he gasped at the sound, blinking in the rain. He’d done it. The first step was finished.

Now the next. Jimmy reached his free hand along the ground, dug his fingers into the asphalt, and pulled. His fingers began to bleed. He kept going. The next line. The knife scratched back and forth, over and over. Jimmy's blood smeared the road next to the red paint and began to dissipate as raindrops fell into it, one by one. Another snap, another gasp.

He could feel Castiel's spark in the back of his mind, still fading. Every time a line broke, the spark brightened for an instant, then subsided again to a dim point. Jimmy knew he had to hurry, but it was working. It had to.

Drag. Scrape. Snap.

Again.

The fifth and final line. Jimmy's vision had narrowed down as if he were looking through a long, thin tunnel, his peripheral vision grayed out and blacking at the edges. He was almost unaware of his body, only the fire in his ribs keeping him tethered to physical sensation. His scraped and bleeding fingers no longer hurt. His broken thumbnail did not register. He wasn't shivering anymore.

His movements were so slow and sluggish that they barely seemed to be happening at all. But still the knife scraped, the sound vibrating through the asphalt, reaching Jimmy's ear. His head rested on the ground, too heavy to move again. This was the final task. After this, he was done.

Finally, the knife bit down through the paint to gray asphalt, and it was finished. Snap. Castiel flared, the chains finally broken, but he was almost mortally weakened by the long drain on his grace. Still, Jimmy heard a whispered communication passing through the space that separated them, simultaneously infinite and non-existent.

_Thank you._

Jimmy's fingers unknotted from the knife, letting it fall to the road with a gentle, almost inaudible clink. Specks of red paint clung to the blade, not entirely unlike drops of blood from an enemy. Jimmy stared at it, and he knew that if he had to fight, he could. This was the first time, but no doubt it wouldn't be the last.

As his eyes slipped shut, at last succumbing to the gray and black that pressed in on all sides, he heard the long blast of a horn. It was harsh and frantic and rapidly nearing where he lay in the road, spent and done. Then consciousness fled, and he knew no more.

X~*~X

"Jimmy. Jimmy. Wake up, would ya? Huh? Cas? You in there?"

The first thing Jimmy noticed was the smell. It was antiseptic and chilly linoleum and bland food and crisp linens bleached until their cleanliness resembled a human's perception of godliness. He was still thankfully numb, the pain of his injuries hidden away, but it was a warm numbness, now, his body comfortable and at rest, no longer laid out on rough asphalt. It was so lovely that all he wanted to do was sink back into slumber and enjoy it a little while longer.

"Jimmy, please?" A hand wrapped around his wrist and gave it a gentle shake, achingly tentative, immediately stopping as if for fear that Jimmy's hand would fall right off with the movement. The young voice was a plea.

Sammy. Jimmy forced his eyelids open, tolerating the gunk that clung to his lashes, surmounting the immense effort the movement required. Sammy's drawn face leaned over his, eyes wide and innocent. The instant Jimmy saw him, Sammy's face cracked into a broad grin. The poor kid had only been thirteen for a month, and Jimmy felt bad for making him worry.

"Jimmy!" Sammy squeezed his wrist, still almost comically careful. A rush of footsteps sounded outside the door. "Oh, God, I'm so glad to see your eyes again."

"Hi, Sammy," Jimmy whispered. His throat felt like it had been scraped with gravel.

He'd been screaming, he remembered. He couldn't recall why. The memory seemed unbearably distant, long ago and far away.

Dean and Dad appeared at Sammy’s side, peering down at Jimmy with relief and worry. In an instant they were both touching him, too, Dean's hand on his arm above Sammy's, Dad’s palm cupping around Jimmy's head, his temple, then coming to rest wrapped around his cheek.

"You had us worried, son," Dad said, and Jimmy's eyes watered. He didn't know why.

"Hey," Dean said, eyes flying wide with alarm. "Hey, don't cry."

Dean hated it when they cried, when anybody cried. Jimmy sniffed, but he couldn't hold it back.

He was just so glad to see them.

Dad's thumb moved under Jimmy's eye, brushing the tears away before they hit the scrape on his cheek. "You were in a car accident. Do you remember?"

Jimmy rocked his head from side to side, a bare shiver of movement, then stilled. His breath stuck in his throat. Now he remembered. He remembered all of it.

"Hey," Dean said. He squeezed Jimmy's arm. "Don't freak out. It's okay."

Dad nodded. "It's okay now. You were thrown free. I'm guessing...I'm guessing our heavenly friend had something to do with that. You managed to drag yourself back to the road, and a truck driver found you and radioed for help."

"You've been out for three days," Sammy said, his voice hushed with awe at this astonishing figure.

Jimmy's eyes flicked to Dad for confirmation, and Dad nodded. "Yeah. They had you in a medical coma for a while. When they brought you in, you were bleeding internally. Weird to say, but it might have been the hypothermia that saved you. It slowed down your functions enough that the doctors had time to bring you back."

Dean glanced around, as if checking for anyone spying on them, then leaned closer to Jimmy. “Is Cas okay?”

Of course they had known that it was Jimmy in charge the instant he opened his eyes, and they were concerned by Castiel’s (highly unusual) absence.. Jimmy sighed and closed his eyes, casting back in his mind again.

Now that he’d done it once in extreme circumstances, it was much easier to find Castiel again. The angel was a banked ember in his mind, glowing low and warm instead of bright and hot. At Jimmy’s approach, he tried to rouse himself. But he couldn’t manage it, instead falling back into his somnolent state with the equivalent of a groan, pained and weary.

Jimmy opened his eyes and met Dean’s worried gaze. “No, not really. He’s hurt bad. He’s alive, though.”

Dean’s breath stopped for a moment, his eyes widening in sudden terror. It hadn’t occurred to him that that could be a question. Sammy’s mouth hung open, and even Dad looked distressed and disconcerted.

Jimmy’s eyes welled up again. Seeing his brothers and dad asking themselves the same questions he had… The sight returned him to that moment when he held Castiel’s life in his numb and shaking hands. It was possible for an angel to die? What would they do without him? How would they ever get over such an overwhelming loss? The agonized desperation of that time, as he felt Castiel fading inside him, poured over Jimmy as fresh and awful as when it was new.

“Hey,” Dad said, low and soothing and tender, and all Jimmy could do was turn his face into his father’s hand and cry. It was choked and soft and weary, and it tore at his throat and clogged his nose and blurred his eyes and hurt his head, and he couldn’t have stopped it to save his life.

It went on for a long time. At first Dad and Dean said things designed to make it stop, though Sammy just held his wrist in a solid, comforting grip. Once it became clear that the crying wasn’t going to end anytime soon, though, “It’s okay” and “You’ll be all right” and “You’re safe now“ and similar phrases stopped coming. More footsteps around the bed, and a stranger, a nurse, did medical things and hooked up an oxygen cannula, while Dad just kept holding his face, while Sammy rubbed his arm and Dean paced beside the bed, helpless and suffering.

When the nurse left, Dad cursed under his breath and let go of Jimmy’s cheek, just for a moment. The bed shook as he lowered the siderail. Then Dad bent down to Jimmy’s level, gathering his head and upper body into his arm, cradling Jimmy’s hot temple and burning forehead against his shoulder. Jimmy turned his face into the cool leather of his jacket and felt his father’s fingers combing through his hair.

There was no room in him for embarrassment, for shame at his weakness. He only knew that he was tired, he hurt, and he had been through a horrible experience. In the moment, when Castiel was depending on him, he could not allow himself to feel the terror and grief and anguish. So he felt it all now when he was safe, surrounded by his family in a clean, warm hospital room.

That demon. The demon who had traveled back from the future riding Castiel, shredding his grace, breaking his wings. The demon who had killed Jimmy’s parents in smoke and flame, orphaning him, condemning him to the broken system that did not see and stop his abuse. The demon, the thing that had possessed Mr. Baker in an attempt to get at them five years ago, thwarted by Dean and Sammy’s resourcefulness, by Castiel’s courage, by John Winchester’s instincts and protectiveness. The demon who still held part of Castiel’s grace, permanently crippling him.

It had tried to kill them again. It had targeted Castiel for death. It had almost succeeded.

And it was still out there.

 _We can’t tell them._ Castiel’s sense was barely there. He had pulled himself out of his stupor in response to Jimmy’s emotions, though he wasn’t going to be able to keep consciousness for very long. He was determined to discuss this while he had a chance. _It would only worry them._

Jimmy sniffled against his father’s shoulder, closed eyelids fluttering as he focused within. _We have to keep an eye out for the demon. They should know what’s going on._

_There’s nothing they can do. We don’t even know its name._

_There has to be something…_

_It’s not important. All of our interactions with it have been focused on me. It wishes to destroy me, and me alone, not the Winchester family as a whole. It doesn’t even seem to care about the coming Apocalypse. It’s a distraction, one we cannot afford._

_It’s trying to kill you, Castiel. That matters. You’re important._

_No. I am only one mutilated angel. I’ve done what I can to change the future, but that’s all._

_You’re important to us._

A pause. But it did not deter Castiel. _Don’t say anything. I don’t want to worry them with this. Please._

Jimmy frowned. Castiel didn’t ask for much, so when he did make a request, it was difficult to refuse him. _Okay, fine. I won’t say anything for now. But you ought to tell them yourself._

_They’re worried enough. Go on, reassure them that all is well, or will be well soon._

Again, Castiel pushed Jimmy back into consciousness, though this time the motion was much more controlled. Jimmy opened his eyes with a sigh, falling limp. The flesh around his eyes was puffy from weeping, his cheeks stiff with dried tears. Dad still held him close, stroking his hair with his free hand, his stubbly chin pressed to Jimmy’s forehead. Dean stared at him from the foot of the bed, uncomfortable but unwilling to leave, and Sammy’s hand rested on his arm, small and soft and warm.

Jimmy couldn’t imagine a more comfortable position, truly.

“Okay?” Dad murmured, a bass rumble vibrating Jimmy’s head where it rested against his neck.

“Did you talk to Cas?” Dean asked.

“Mmm.” Jimmy shifted his head in the approximation of a nod. “He’s…he’s in bad shape. But he’ll be okay. Just needs to rest.”

“Like you,” Dad said with a note of amusement.

“Yeah.”

“All right.” Dad held him even closer, solid and reassuring and safe, part manly sideways hug, part unapologetic fatherly comfort. “You do that. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Jimmy believed him. Sammy pressed his arm, Dean nodded, and his entire family was with him. Jimmy nestled into it and let himself fade out once again. He would have time enough to worry about the rest later.

**End of Third Interlude**


	13. Book Four: Prologue & Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [YouTube Playlist,](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLelj9LO80m3sYyzg0uLH71ln7ohkdaq41) from whence came the titles. Suggested mood music for this part: "Giants" by Five Iron Frenzy.

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day   
Book 4: The Name of the Demon

**Prologue: The Mystery of the Quotient**

_So this was Colorado Springs._

_A squalid mountain village growing within the arms of rock like moss on a log, unnecessary and unsightly, teeming with tiny creatures all engrossed completely in their own lives, convinced of their own worth and importance and heedless of the immensity of the universe. Most of them were unaware of the existence of the powers that undergirded their dimension, of the cosmic forces that flew and spun and shimmered just outside the bounds of their pitiful, primitive senses. The vast majority of them had no idea of the vastness of their ignorance, and worse than that, they didn’t even know that they didn’t know. They were oblivious to their own insignificance._

_The entity who had deigned to visit Colorado Springs hovered over this blemish on the face of nature and found it more amusing than anything else. So many thousands of them, witless, blind. And they were the most advanced animals on the planet! Absolutely hilarious._

_Not to mention the corruption. So much of it that it was frankly astonishing, even to a being who had existed for time out of mind and witnessed thousands of civilizations rise and fall on the face of this blue and green planet. They even made themselves into monsters, removing their bodies and spirits so far from the norm that only a few even realized the depths of corruption possible and hunted the diseased members of their own race to protect those still slightly more innocent._

_The entity really didn’t know why God had made them in the first place and delighted in them so greatly. But then, God was a strange being in Himself, and His ways were mysterious, even to His first sons. The entity was only moderately annoyed that God had not seen fit to share precisely why He enjoyed these dust mites so indiscriminately._

_But the entity was not here to ponder the motives and purposes of a vanished God. The entity was here for reasons unrelated. Plans were in motion that involved this city, as well as the small, fading point of light that had exiled itself here. That foolish little point of light must be snuffed out, and the entity had arrived to ensure that it happened._

_An atmospheric disturbance had erupted when the entity arrived on this plane, creating a storm that swept over the little city with sudden force, blocking the feeble rays of the sun and casting dark shadow over streets and buildings and all. The entity watched the storm’s progress with jaded curiosity, finding amusement in watching the dust mites run to escape the rain and the cold. They were only delaying the inevitable. Soon darkness and cold would devour them whole, and their entire pointless dust-heap of a civilization with them._

_That, the cosmic visitor who watched above found the most amusing of all._

 

**Chapter 1: Who Pulls the Levers**

Colorado Springs, Colorado  
May 1997

"Somebody help me! Please somebody help!"

It was a little girl's voice. Jimmy and Sammy both darted out of the Impala before they'd made the conscious decision to move, staring at each other and the surrounding park in alarm. The kids they could see were perking up and looking around, too, trying to find the source of the cry.

"There." 

Sammy pointed across the park. A little girl in a white shirt and a blue skirt, racing across the wet grass. Jimmy squinted and shaded his eyes. She was running toward them from the far side of the park, where the manicured grass gave way to a wooded hillside, crowded and wild.

The Winchesters weren't the only youngsters who immediately moved forward to meet her, but they got there first. She practically fell into Sammy's arms, panting and sobbing. "Help me, please help me!"

"What's wrong? What is it?" 

The questions were coming from several teenagers gathered around, but she didn't calm until Cas knelt down to her level, put a hand on her back, and looked her in the eyes. "What do you need us to do?"

The girl sniffed and rubbed her snotty nose on Sammy's shoulder, then looked straight back at Cas, hiccuping. "My doggy ran away! Please help me find him?"

Sammy and Cas shared a look. "We'll do everything we can," Castiel said.

"Where did your puppy go?" Sammy asked, patting her awkwardly on the back. 

She straightened up, pushing off his chest, the tears abruptly gone. Apparently their promises were enough to reassure her. The little girl pointed away into the wilderness beyond the park. Of course.

Castiel's shoulders slumped as he stared off into the wooded hillside. Sammy snickered to himself. Cas and Jimmy didn't get along great with woods for any extended period. They both enjoyed nature, sure; they were very appreciative of beauty. But neither of them liked pooping behind a bush.

"He ran away when the storm started," the little girl said, sniffing back the last of her tears. "It was scary."

"Yes, it was," Cas said with his usual solemnity, his eyes round and sympathetic.

"Okay, okay." Sammy patted her shoulder, the one Cas wasn't holding. "We'll all look for your doggy. He couldn't have gone far. I'm sure we'll find him in no time. Won't we, guys?"

He looked at the teenagers gathered around, about a dozen young guys. They all nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm, some still squeezing out their wet shirts, others pushing damp hair from their eyes.

"Yeah, we'll find him," Jake said, giving the girl his most cheerful, confident grin. "No worries."

"Does your puppy have a name?" Cas asked. "We will call him until he answers."

"Maxxie." She started to smile, watery and uncertain but bolstered by their confidence.

"And what is your name?"

"I'm Tilly."

"Okay, Tilly. We'll find Maxxie." Cas stood from his kneeling position and held out his hand. "Come, let's go to that picnic pavilion over there." He pointed the way. "You should wait in safety while we search. We'll return with your dog, don't worry."

"Okay." She nodded eagerly, following his lead. 

The teens began splitting up into groups of two and three to comb the woods. Sammy wasn’t surprised when Jake chose to go off with Tyler and Garrett. Jake needed some space from them to process everything.

Instead Sammy partnered with Castiel, once he came back from the depositing Tilly at the pavilion. Cas’s eyes were tired and far away. They trekked up the hill without a word, heading off on a vector away from the other groups. They could hear the calls from the searchers all around them, though after a few minutes they could no longer see anyone else through the trees.

“Um, sorry I basically called you a liar, earlier,” Sammy said after a while.

Cas shrugged. “I’m not above using deception in our struggle, though I would not choose to use it against allies. You’re right, it would have been a clever plan. Though it would have been just as effective to tell Jake that I could change the weather and then do it before his eyes, if I was capable of that much power.”

Sammy blushed. “Yeah, I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s fine. Don’t concern yourself with it.”

The moved on in silence. Sammy stepped over a tangle of fallen branches, and Cas almost tripped, his foot getting caught in a mess of ground-covering vegetation. Sammy paused to grab his hand and haul him out. He couldn’t help noticing that Castiel still looked troubled and distant.

“Hey, what’s bugging you?” he asked once they were both free.

“It’s nothing.”

Sammy snorted. “Come on. It’s just me. You don’t have to pretend like nothing ever bothers you.”

Cas drew a deep breath, then let it out. “It truly is nothing, but…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s only… Jake first began to like me, to trust us, because he thought that I had some sort of mental impairment like his brother.”

Sammy chuckled. “Yeah, that was hilarious. He thought you were special needs.”

“Yes, very amusing.”

Castiel did not sound at all amused. Sammy closed his mouth, the smile fading. He tried to understand what Cas was saying. “You’re not, though. You’re not…slow. Mentally.”

“No. But I have been compelled to notice that sometimes…you treat me as if I am. Even Jimmy does, on occasion.”

“Oh.” Sammy blinked. “Do we really?”

“Yes. Not…constantly. But now and then. I didn’t become aware of it until I saw the parallels. Jake was blatant, but you’ve all sometimes looked at me as if I’m…special needs.”

Sammy paused at a relatively clear spot between two trees, turning to look at Castiel. Cas stopped too, looking back at him with clear, guileless vision. “Well,” Sammy began slowly. “You kind of are.”

Cas’s forehead wrinkled.

“Not that you’re a mental case,” Sammy hastened to clarify. “But…you know…you’re special. In a way.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.” Castiel’s voice was completely flat.

“You’re…you know…” Sammy flapped a hand in the air. “You’re like a foreign exchange student. From really, really far away. Sometimes there are things you just don’t get. Cultural differences, nuances of language. So sometimes we try to…smooth things over for you, if we can.”

Cas tilted his head. “I’ve now been living on Earth in Jimmy’s body for over thirteen years.”

“Yes, but you’re, like, really set in your ways.” Sammy grinned. “Not surprising, considering how tiny a percentage of your life those thirteen years have been. You’ve had way, way longer being an angel than you have being an angel stuck in a human boy.”

Cas stared at him for a few seconds longer, then uttered a short, “Hm,” in a tone of surprised approval, and turned to head up the hillside.

Sammy watched him go for a moment, then hurried to catch up, crashing through the undergrowth behind him. “So it doesn’t bother you now?”

“When you couch it in those terms, no. I suppose I am ‘special needs,’ in a way, just as you say. I am very grateful for the kindnesses you all have shown me.”

“Well, of course, man. You’re our brother.”

“Yes. As long as I am a Winchester, it doesn’t trouble me much what others may think of me.”

“Cool.” Sammy grinned at Cas’s back, though he couldn’t resist one final jab. “You have to admit that you do come off like Rain Man sometimes.”

“Ah, there’s a cultural reference I understand. I quite liked that movie.”

Sammy laughed. If he’d been tall enough, he would have reached over and ruffled his hair. Or given him a noogie.

Cas looked back long enough to give him his version of a smile, corners of his mouth lightly turned up, eyes content and satisfied. “Jimmy is going to come forward now. He thinks I’m not doing a good job of looking for this dog.”

“We’ve been a bit distracted, yeah.”

A second later Jimmy turned back up the hill, yelling the dog’s name at the top of his lungs. “Maxxie! Maxxie!” Sammy trotted after him, grinning.

They continued on, calling and searching. Sammy noted with some concern that they could no longer hear any of the other searchers yelling. Gradually the rise tapered out and came to a plateau, though the trees prevented them from getting any kind of view from the top of the hill they’d scaled. Sammy touched Jimmy’s arm.

“Hey, maybe we should head back. Somebody else might have found him by now.”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, any farther than this, it’s not really a job for a bunch of kids, anyway.”

They turned back and started heading downhill, picking and choosing an easier path that avoided all the heavy undergrowth. They continued to call, but with less enthusiasm and volume. Jimmy led the way into another small clearing, a grassy meadow about the size of a tennis court. Sammy stepped up beside him, no longer constrained by the narrow paths between trees.

Then Jimmy doubled over, yelling in shock. Sammy grabbed his elbow but couldn't prevent him from hitting the dirt. Sammy stared, breath stuttering in his throat. Jimmy's hands were pressed to his ears as if to block out some terrible sound, and blood spurted from his nose in a sudden stream, brilliant and jewel-like against the green and brown of the surrounding wilderness.

"Jimmy, Jimmy!" Sammy's voice was breathless and high, much younger than his actual years. He was frightened almost beyond the ability to speak. "Jimmy, what's happening?"

Jimmy bent in the tall grass, folded onto himself, tight, tight, tight, like a coil of metal pressed to the edge of its capacity for strain. His breath rushed in and out of his mouth in a desperate wheeze. Sammy knew at a glance that this was Jimmy hurting, not Castiel, and the sight was so alien and unexpected that he didn't know what to do with it. He stood there by his brother, both hands wrapped around his upper arm, as if he could haul him up and lead him away just by the dint of desperately wanting to be able to.

"Jimmy, talk to me," he demanded, and that seemed to jolt something loose in Jimmy's tense stance. He looked up, eyes wide and blue and almost blank with the shock of sudden pain.

"Not me," he forced out between desperate gasps of air. "I'm okay."

"You don't look okay!"

But Jimmy shook his head, not allowing himself to be distracted. "Not me," he said again, insistent. "Castiel. Something's wrong. Something's really, really wrong."

Sammy froze. His fingers tightened around Jimmy's arm, hard. He didn't realize he was doing it until Jimmy winced, and then he let go instantly and took a step back. He felt like he was drowning.

"Cas? Something's wrong with Cas?"

Jimmy nodded, and the movement almost sent him sprawling in the grass. He reeled on his knees, face draining of all color. He looked like he was about to throw up.

Sammy wrapped his hands around his arm, pulling with all his strength. "Get up. Get up! We have to go back."

Jimmy struggled to rise, getting up on one foot and one knee. He was breathing hard and fast, in terror more than pain. “We’re too far out,” he told Sammy, voice deceptively calm. “We’re too far away.”

“I know,” Sammy said, hauling on his arm. “I know, I figured it out. We gotta go. Come on, you can do it.”

“We warded the park. We didn’t ward the forest.”

With Sammy pushing and pulling, Jimmy climbed up onto his shaky, wavering feet. Sammy put an arm around his back, and they walked unsteadily downhill. The grass seemed like thousands of tiny hands, grabbing at their feet, trying to trap them. They fought through it, clutching each other like drunkards stumbling home.

Then she appeared at the edge of the trees downhill, smiling with white teeth and eyes so black they all but glowed. Tilly, sharp and bright, standing out in their vision while all the surrounding scenery blurred to insignificance. Sammy and Jimmy pulled up short, holding each other with whitening knuckles.

“You.” Jimmy spat the word, spittle flying from his pale lips. Sammy darted a look to his face. He’d never heard hatred in that normally gentle voice before.

“Me,” Tilly said, gliding forward over the grass. Her white t-shirt, innocuous in the park, here seemed blasphemous and obscene. No demon should be allowed to wear white, Sammy thought incoherently.

“Get out of her,” Jimmy ordered, his voice deep and resonant, almost as powerful as Castiel’s or Dad’s. He’d found the strength to stand upright, leaning on Sammy only slightly. He held Sammy’s shoulder in a hard grip.

“Make me.”

The creature began to move sideways along the edge of the clearing, circling them. It was a move Sammy remembered with a sudden clarity, like a wrench of his brain. The church gym in Pontiac, Illinois. The demon in the body of the man who had once beaten and abused Jimmy Novak on a daily basis.

Jimmy shook with rage. “How did you get inside the wards of the park? Why didn’t Castiel see you instantly for the fiend you are?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” Tilly smiled. She still had all of her baby teeth, white and lovely against the pale red of her lips. Sammy wanted to be sick. “Guess your oh-so-highly vaunted protections aren’t that powerful, after all.”

It had been Dean and Castiel who stood against this demon before. They held it off with courage and tenacity and a bottle of holy water until Dad arrived and scared it away with the Colt. None of those three were here now. Jimmy and Sammy were alone in the woods, only air between them and the beast that wanted to destroy them more than any other thing in the universe.

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic.” Tilly came to a halt and bounced on her toes like a little girl. Jimmy and Sammy turned to face her, not entirely gracefully. “I want you to live, little Sammy. And I don’t care one way or another about that pathetic vessel you call your big brother. No, this is about someone else.”

Her slender white hand sneaked into the pocket of her skirt, like a snake slithering into the burrow of a prey animal, and withdrew holding a vial.

“Cas,” Jimmy hissed. “Leave him alone, you horrible, unbelievable _bastard.”_

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

The light in the vial wasn’t quite right, not the blinding, penetrating purity Sammy remembered from the gym. Now the demon shook the vial, and Jimmy yelled and clutched his chest, stumbling backward. Sammy kept him upright, somehow, muscles screaming with the effort.

“What did you do?” Sammy cried, voice almost shrill.

“Just a little spell. Just a tiny, insignificant little piece of…” She raised the vial, holding it in front of her face with both hands in a ritualistic gesture. “…Hell…” The liquid light inside the vial frothed and swirled, unaffected by outside motion, and a dark spot of some other color began to grow inside the white. “…magic.”

She said some words in a language Sammy didn’t know, her voice low and garbled and terrible. It was awful, making all the hair on his neck stand up, as if the demon were no longer speaking with the tongue of a little girl but had pushed through fully to say the lines with its own mouth. The sun went gray, darkness descending in an instant upon the tiny meadow, and cold air swept around them with a stench like a rotting bog.

The bright white light of Castiel’s stolen grace morphed into a dark and glowing red, like blood, viscous and corrupted and old, so strong that Sammy thought he could smell it. Jimmy fell to the grass, sliding out of Sammy’s slack grip, screaming and grabbing at his head. The demon smiled and vanished in a noxious breeze.

They were alone in the woods once more, the sky blue and the sun bright above them.

X~*~X

_Castiel, Castiel, talk to me. Please talk to me._

Trees and bushes moved by in a blur of green and brown and gray. Undergrowth snatched at his feet, threatening to trip him up, and he stumbled through it, bouncing off tree trunks in a heedless rush down the slope. The hands holding his arm tightening, propping him upright when his legs threatened to give out. A young voice uttered breathless curses.

_Castiel, Castiel. Castiel! Can you hear me? Oh, please, can you hear me?_

Blood, sticky and viscous, leaked endlessly from his nose. He swiped at it with a clumsy paw, dimly aware that it was too late. He was already covered in it, his face, his chest, his t-shirt. The kids were going to be freaked out. The kid with him was already freaked out.

_Castiel, please. Sammy's so scared. I'm so scared. Please tell me you're okay._

"Jimmy, look out!"

Sammy's high voice jerked Jimmy's head up, eyes blinking open, just in time to swerve around another tree. His head hurt. His eyes hurt. His throat was burning.

_Castiel. Cas! Cas! Listen to me! Hear me!_

Nothing worked. Jimmy was bellowing internally, just as he'd been doing out loud for what felt like minutes on end before Sammy dragged him to his feet and they began this reckless run down the wooded hill. It wasn't working. Castiel couldn't hear him.

But Jimmy could hear Cas. He could hear him screaming in agony, on and on and on, a high-pitched angel scream beyond the realm of human understanding. Even if it were aloud, it would be inaudible to the vast majority of humans.

But Jimmy heard it. He couldn't stop hearing it.

X~*~X

Sammy stumbled out of the trees, dragging Jimmy with him, and kept going across the grass. Jimmy kept up, barely. Sammy didn't know how. His legs and lungs were afire from the run, his arms aching with the effort of keeping his brother upright and not hitting every tree trunk in their path. But they had farther to go.

"C'mon, Jimmy," he got out, more gasps than words. "We gotta go."

Classmates and friends shouted when they emerged into the park, shocked by the blood, by their desperate sprint still continuing past the pavilion, into the field where not long ago they'd been playing a simple adolescent game. Sammy couldn't spare the time to talk to them, to reassure them. They couldn't help. He didn't need them, so they meant nothing.

But one figure split off from the milling teenagers and ran across the wet grass to intercept them, gray water flying up from every impact of his sneakers. Jake, athletic and strong, catching up to run alongside them, holding Jimmy up by his other arm. Sammy gave him a nod and let go of his brother, racing ahead to the parking lot.

He crossed the black pavement, through shallow puddles and fallen leaves and petals, though he did not go far enough to leave the wards again. His destination was inside the circle of protection, thankfully. They'd had that much foresight when they set the wards earlier this month. 

The payphone. Sammy slammed into the white metal kiosk with both hands against the painted side to halt his run, unwilling to slow down even for the final split second of his sprint. He fumbled in his pocket for a coin. His fingers shook as he dropped it in the slot and dialed.

"Please be home, please pick up, please be home, please pick up." He pressed the cold black plastic to his ear hard enough to hurt.

Jake and Jimmy arrived behind him just as the jangling ring cut off and the click of the phone being lifted ran down the line. Sammy looked up to the sky, eyes closing in relief.

"Hello?" Dad's voice, deep and familiar, a haven Sammy could have let himself fall into if urgency didn't thrum through every limb, making him bounce in place, heart pounding.

"Dad." And he had to stop for breath, for words. His mind was blank. He didn't know what to say.

"Sammy?" Dad's voice was still calm, more amused than alarmed. "You sound out of breath. Having fun at your game?"

Sammy panted into the phone, chest heaving, eyes wide and rolling. He looked to Jake and Jimmy as if they could tell him what to say. They just stared back at him, Jake with confusion, Jimmy with speechless panic.

"Son?" Now Dad sounded a little concerned, but not near enough. Not even close to what the situation warranted.

"Dad." Sammy's hand snatched at the edge of the kiosk, hard, necessary. His knees felt like water. "Dad, we were attacked."

"Attacked?" 

There was the urgency Sammy had been looking for. He heard movement on the other end of the line, Dad moving from zero to sixty in less than a second, rushing around the apartment to gather items, carrying the phone only long enough to get the information he needed. That single word had carried instant rage and power, and Sammy knew his father was on the way. He closed his eyes, leaning on the kiosk with his entire upper body.

"What was it? What do you need?" Rapped out, commands. Tell me what I need to know, soldier. Just the facts. Do it fast.

"Demon. I don't know. It lured us out beyond the wards, but...it came inside them. It came inside the wards."

"Are you safe? Are you and Jimmy okay?"

"I don't know. I...yes. Reasonably."

"What does Cas say? Does he think he can hold it off until I get there?" Drawers opening, Dad rustling around, probably for a favorite knife or pistol.

"I... That's the thing, Dad. Jimmy and I are okay, mostly. But Cas...Cas isn't."

Silence. Dad had quit moving. Sammy held his breath and felt the tears start to well up, despite his best efforts to hold them back. 

Dad was scared, too.

"What do you mean?" Dad's voice was completely calm, which meant that he was making it be.

"The demon wasn't after us. It was after Cas, and...and it got to him. I think... Dad, I think it was the same one we met in Pontiac."

The drawer slammed, and the phone jangled as Dad dropped it on the nearest hard surface. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

Sammy knew very well that the trip between their apartment and the park took at least twice that.

"Okay," he whispered.

He hung up. Then he sank down to sit on the wet pavement and let the tears come.

X~*~X

John shrieked into the parking lot with a squeal of tires, parked crookedly along the curb, and threw himself down out of the truck toward his sons. They were both sitting on the pavement next to the phone kiosk, exhausted and wary and scared. Jimmy had taken off his bloody t-shirt and was holding it to his face, but Sammy watched his father approach with relief and terror warring on his open expression.

The kid who was the entire reason they were here—in Colorado, in this park—Jake Talley, was warding off a group of curious teens, keeping them back from bothering the Winchesters. John would have to thank him later. Right now his boys mattered more.

Sammy dragged himself to his feet as John neared, chest heaving, eyes wide and panicked, but he was holding himself together admirably. John reached out to him, a large hand cupping his youngest's jaw and neck. "You okay?"

Sammy nodded, leaning into John's touch for a bare moment. He swallowed, Adam's apple bouncing in his slender throat. "But Cas... Jimmy..."

John squeezed the back of his neck in support, then bent down to his other son. "Jimmy?"

Jimmy's face was whiter than his shirt. He pulled the cloth away, revealing streaks of dried blood caked over his upper lip and chin. At least his nose had stopped bleeding. His eyes, though, were even more frantic than Sammy's. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

John pulled him to his feet and wrapped his arms around him. Jimmy felt frail in his arms, shaking like an injured child, like a frightened animal, like a fallen leaf, dry and empty and curled around a void. John saw Jake gaping at Jimmy's bare torso, knew that he was seeing the scars. John closed his eyes and pressed his nose to his son's dark hair.

"Okay," he murmured. "We're okay."

Jimmy shook his head. "We're not, Dad. We're really not." His hands clenched in the back of John's jacket, tight and hard, and he seemed intent on squeezing every molecule of air out of John's lungs.

John hugged him close and looked out over the parking lot, toward the field, the play equipment and pavilions, the woods beyond. A demon. Not just _a_ demon, but _the_ demon. The one that had traveled with Castiel back to 1984, killed Jimmy's parents, possessed Jimmy's abuser and attacked them in Pontiac. 

They had always been careful. Everywhere they went, they warded buildings and areas, drew Devil's Traps, laid salt and goofer dust. They carried holy water and anti-possession wards and consecrated weapons. Castiel painted the symbols of ancient religion and protection; Jimmy prayed over them and blessed them. They had all exorcised demons, even Sammy when he got trapped alone in an alley a few months ago, though Castiel was the best at it and usually took the lead.

And none of it had been enough.

Eventually Jimmy's shaking slackened enough that John felt okay leaning back and taking his shoulders in his hands. He looked the boy in the face, searching for the soldier he knew was in there. Jimmy had never been required to fight before, not like this, but John had always known he was capable if the time ever came.

"Do you know where it is? Any sign of it since the first attack?"

Jimmy shook his head. He met John's eyes, strong and steady, that deep core of steel John had known he'd find. "No sign of it. I believe it got what it came for."

"How sure are you?"

"Ninety-five percent. It was after Castiel. It got him."

John nodded. He let up on the majority of his habitual scanning of the environment, focusing on Jimmy. "What's Cas's status?"

Jimmy's chin shook and his face twisted. He came within a hair's breadth of falling apart again. "Not good, Dad. Not good."

"Specifics, kiddo."

"I can hear him screaming. That's all I can hear. He can't hear me. He seems to be isolated, completely cut off. No connection to me, though he's still...still in the vessel of my mind."

"Is he in pain?"

This time Jimmy didn't flinch. "Yes."

A simple response that didn't begin to cover the complexity of the situation, but it was enough to be going on with.

"You've tried to contact him?"

"Constantly."

Yes, of course. John let go of Jimmy with one hand so he could grab Sammy and pull him into the discussion. "Tell me what happened."

It didn't take long. John was aware of the Talley kid listening from the sidelines, but it barely mattered. The kid believed it or he didn't. That mission had fallen to far, far second in priority. When the boys were done, John raised his head, looking to the wooded hillside where they'd met the demon. Nothing to see, but he felt better keeping an eye on it.

"So the demon got inside Cas's wards around the park in order to lure you out."

Sammy nodded. "Yeah."

"But it still needed to lure you out. Whatever it did, it couldn't do it inside the circle of protection. In fact, it waited till you were pretty far beyond the border, didn't it?"

The boys nodded, and their shoulders, still held in John's hands, slowly released some of their wire-strung tension. They got what he was getting at it.

"We're...we're probably safe," Jimmy said. "For the moment."

"However it got inside the wards, it must have been a pretty shallow disguise," Sammy said.

John nodded, satisfied with that reasoning. "Just enough to bypass a three-week old line of wards and fool a passively observing angel."

"Still troubling," Jimmy said.

"Yes. Cas's wards have never failed before, and even watching passively, he's always been able to see demons coming. It's a bad sign. But it's not the end of the world."

And here John had to smile. "Not yet."

Jimmy replied with a shaky smile, even though the joke was too morbid, too close to reality, to really be funny. Then he winced, his hands flying to his head, the bloody t-shirt still clenched in his fist waving like a grotesque flag. John sobered instantly. It was time to go.

He looked between the pickup and the Impala for second, but it wasn’t really a contest. The truck was nice, but the Impala had been their home for over a decade, and the wards and protections laid into it were deep and thick and strong. He held out his hand to Jimmy for the keys, and Jimmy passed them over without a murmur.

“Jimmy, lie down in the back. Sammy, shotgun.” John strode toward the car, then turned back to the kid who’d been standing on the edge of their family circle, quietly listening. “Jake, can you get a ride with another friend? We need to get Jimmy home ASAP.”

Jake’s eyes were wide, but not as panicked as John might have expected. “Yes, sir.”

John nodded briskly and turned to go, but Jake’s voice called him back. “Sir?”

John paused and turned around again, raising his eyebrows.

“Is…um…” Jake fidgeted, kicking the ground with one toe, then looked back to John, eyes clear and steady. “Is Castiel gonna be okay?”

He knew. John should have figured his boys would have cracked this kid by now. “We’ll make him be.”

“And…and my family? Will that demon come after us?”

Behind him, Sammy gasped. He’d been so focused on Jimmy and Castiel that it hadn’t occurred to him that the demon could be going after the special kids, too. John gave Jake the respect of serious consideration.

“I don’t think so,” he said after a moment. “Like Jimmy said, this demon seems to be after Cas, and Cas alone. But you have every right to be worried, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. If I were you, I’d lay a line of salt at all of your doors and windows tonight. And wear this.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a spare anti-possession charm. He tossed it to Jake with an underhand throw, and the boy caught it effortlessly. “One of us will come by later to ward your house more permanently. You might want to talk to your mom, too. About whether she remembers making a deal with a demon sometime before you were born. She can help you convince the rest of your family.”

Jake’s breath caught, but he nodded. “Yes, sir.”

"You'll be fine. Better to know what's coming, even if you're not sure how to fight it."

"Forewarned is forearmed."

"That's right." John gave him a tight smile, then turned back to his car and his sons. They'd already followed instructions, Jimmy lying in the back with his t-shirt under his head, eyes shut, nose swollen, face and torso speckled with blood dried and drying and fresh. Sammy sat in the front, the shotgun with salt rounds across his lap, his hands loose on the stock and barrel. In the Winchester family, the "shotgun" seat was more often literal than figurative.

John got in and turned on the car. It rumbled around them, close and comforting, and Peter, Paul & Mary starting singing from the speakers. The sound roused Sammy out of his daze, looking to his father. "Where's Dean? Can we go get him?"

"He's out studying." John threw the car into gear and roared onto the street.

Sammy goggled, momentarily thrown. "Dean? Is studying?"

"With a girl," John clarified. "Quote 'studying' unquote."

"Oh." Sammy leaned back in his seat. "I just thought... you know..."

"That having him with us would help?"

"Yeah."

Jimmy's voice in the backseat was muffled. "I'm sure it would. If Castiel could hear us."

"We'll find a way," John said. He looked at Sammy. "We'll call him when we get back to the apartment. He'll come home."

"Yeah, okay. I just..." Sammy bounced his head back against the seat, at a loss for words.

"You want him now," John said. "I get it. Dean's a jackass, but he's also reassuring in a crisis."

Jimmy made a sound halfway between laughing and choking. "Truer words..."

"Relax, kiddo. Save your strength." John barreled through an intersection, heedless of the lights. 

"How many times do I gotta tell you, I'm _fine._ It's Castiel who's in trouble. It's Castiel who's screaming in agony as we speak."

"Yeah? Is that easy to listen to? Does it make you feel comfortable and strong?"

"What? No!" Jimmy half-rose from the backseat, furious eyes appearing in the rear-view mirror to glare at John.

"Then this is hard on you, too. Take it easy."

Jimmy subsided, falling back down. His nose was bleeding again, and he held it with one hand. "Point made. But, Dad, there's something I gotta tell you..."

"We're almost home. Tell me then."

"It's about the demon..." 

"Then you should definitely tell me at home. I gotta concentrate on driving."

Jimmy fell silent, which had been John's goal. He shared a look with Sammy. Over the past few years John Winchester and sons had gradually evolved into an effective fighting unit. John and Dean took point on most cases, letting Sammy run support. Castiel led whenever it was something to do with demons or another subject in his wheelhouse. Cas was also damn handy in a fight and knew a lot of lore that wasn't in any of the books and never had been.

But they'd never fought alongside Jimmy before. They didn't know his style. They didn't know if he had one. It was a wrench in the works, one they weren't sure how to deal with.

The fact was that Jimmy was more of a victim and witness in this case than anything, and John and Sammy had already fallen into dealing with him as one. It felt like the most natural way to approach it. Jimmy, though, probably wouldn't see it like that. It was another complication in an already complicated situation.

“We gotta get home,” Sammy said, with the breathless urgency of one who could not think of anything else to do.

John couldn’t have agreed more.


	14. Book Four: Chapter 2

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day   
Book 4: The Name of the Demon

**Chapter 2: I Was Breathing Gasoline**

They didn't have to call Dean to get him to come home—he was already there when they got back to the apartment, wondering where everyone was and why there were drawers hanging out of the side table. It was as if he could sense when something was going wrong, like a dog. Or like Castiel, Jimmy thought sadly.

The moment they came in the door, Dean was on them. Sammy and Dad pushed past him, heading for the books and the phone. Dean trailed after them, words spewing from his mouth. "Where the hell have you been? I come home and the door's open and stuff is all over and I'm like, 'Did we get robbed or something?' and then..." He saw Jimmy and his eyes flew wide, white all around the green. "Holy shit."

"I'm fine," Jimmy said, but Dean was already grabbing his shoulder and arm and pulling him over to the sofa.

"Sit down, you moron. Gimme that." Dean took the bloody t-shirt from Jimmy's hand and replaced it with a cloth from his own pocket. "You gotta start carrying a handkerchief, dude. I can't believe after all this time you still don't understand that."

"I'm _fine,"_ Jimmy snapped, glaring up at him. "It's stopped. See?" He gestured at his face with a hard wrench of the wrist, as if throwing a knife. 

"Yeah, but it could start again anytime, and..." Dean paused, caught in mid-step as he moved toward the kitchen to take care of the t-shirt. He turned back, frowning even harder than he already had been. "Wait a second. Where's Cas? Why isn't he taking charge?"

"Because he _can't,"_ Jimmy replied, furious, and was horrified when the tears started rising in his eyes again. Oh, man, he was bad at this. He was the worst. And that just made the tears come faster.

"Tell me what's going on," said Dean, and though his voice was quiet, it was nothing approaching a request.

"You'd better sit down," Dad said, looking up from the address book he was flipping through. Bobby must not have answered the first number, the one they all had memorized.

Dean flopped down on the leaking beanbag they'd grabbed and brought along from three towns ago, looking at Jimmy expectantly. The bloody t-shirt was clenched in his fist, pressed to his knee like a talisman. Jimmy couldn't take his eyes off it. It was easier to look at that than to meet Dean's intense stare.

He didn't want to tell the story again, but Dean needed to know. So he got it across in as few words as possible. "The demon from Pontiac. The one that stole a chunk of Castiel's grace and still has it. It attacked us in the woods at the park. It had the vial of grace, and it did something with it, some spell. Castiel is still in my mind, but he's cut off. It's like he's trapped in a miniature Hell. I can't get him out. All I can do is listen to him scream, on and on."

Dean was still and silent for a moment. It was long enough that Jimmy found the strength to look up and seek out his father across the room. "I gotta tell you... what I started to say in the car..."

Dad looked up, the phone held between his shoulder and ear. In the other room, the sounds of Sammy rustling through their lore books paused, and the kid came to the door to listen. Jimmy swallowed.

"I should have told you then...should have told you right away. But Castiel begged me not to. He didn't want to worry you—he thought it didn't matter. But it does, it does matter, and I should have told you. I'm sorry I didn't." Jimmy sniffed, hard, and punched himself in the thigh. 

"Spit it out," Dean said.

Jimmy nodded and swiped a hand over his face as if to push away the torrent of emotions that were tearing through him, filling his eyes and shaking his body. "The car accident last year. It wasn't so much an accident. That was an attack, too."

Silence. Dad put the phone back on the cradle. Sammy stepped into the living room. Dean continued staring at Jimmy, and the look was a command to continue as powerful as any words could have been.

"It was the same demon," Jimmy said. "It knew that Castiel would want to visit that area, and it laid traps on the roads. We ran into one. It made Castiel's grace go haywire. And it was...it was sucking his life away. He almost died."

"You saved him," Dean said.

"Yeah. I...I didn't drag myself to the road to flag down help. I did it because I had to break the trap. I could feel him dying and I... I had to save him." Jimmy took a breath that was half a sob and scrubbed at his face again. He shivered, partly at the memory of that awful day, dragging himself through the wet grass, the icy rain, and partly because his torso was bare and no one had turned on the heat in the apartment.

Sammy stepped away into the hallway toward the bedrooms. Dean sat still on the beanbag, his chest heaving. "Why the _fuck_ wouldn't Cas want you to tell us about that?"

"He thought... He thought he wasn't important. The demon was only after him, didn't seem to care about anything else, and he thought that we should all concentrate on the mission and not be distracted by..." Jimmy's lip curled, and he spat the words out, as furious as Dean. "By the little matter of his nemesis trying to assassinate him."

"Yeah, well, that's horse shit," Dean said, with the confidence of knowing that everyone in the room agreed with him. "Cas is a goddamn idiot, and as soon as we get him back I'm going to tell him so."

"No arguments here," Jimmy muttered, his gaze on the floor.

Something soft nudged his shoulder, and he looked up to find Sammy standing there by the sofa, holding out a t-shirt and one of the cavernous hoodies Dean favored when he wasn't feeling well. 

"Cover up," Sammy said, eyebrows raised. His voice was nearly as authoritative as Dad's or Dean's. Jimmy suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and took the clothing, slipping the shirt over his head, then drawing the hoodie over his arms. He was pretty chilly. As a matter of fact, he was verging on numb. 

He was smart enough to know that that was a bad sign. Shock, probably.

Buried deep in his head, Castiel screamed on.

Jimmy shuddered and hunched over, staring at the carpet. The light from the windows was too bright, creating a path of washed-out white across the dingy carpet. He stared at it, inexplicably fascinated by the smudges and stain spots of tenants past and gone. On the far side of the room, an ant crawled along the baseboard, traversing the tufts of carpet fiber as if they were stems of grass. Something in Jimmy's perspective shifted, and suddenly the ant seemed like a person, surrounded by the almost insurmountable wilderness of carpet. It toiled across the gray wasteland like a man through a salt plain, step by laborious step, head down, eyes fixed as the sun beat upon him, hot as the flames of Hell.

"Jimmy." A hand landed on his shoulder, and Jimmy flinched and looked up. It was Dad, bending over him, dark eyes deep with concern.

"Y...yes?"

Dad rubbed his shoulder. "You went away from us, kiddo. How are you doing?"

Jimmy shook his head. He felt too removed for bravado, for a show of strength. "I don't know."

Dad glanced around, probably checking on what Dean and Sam were doing—looking at books? Jimmy hadn't been paying attention. Then he sat on the couch next to Jimmy and wrapped his arm around him. Jimmy leaned into his side, accepting the offered warmth. He was unbelievably cold. He didn't understand why. Castiel was burning.

"What's going on?" Dad asked, his voice low, just for Jimmy. Letting him pretend that he could keep this away from his younger brothers, his weakness, his confusion, that he could retain some dignity.

"I don't know," Jimmy said again, but then he blinked. "Wait, I... Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. I'm not sure. It's so strange."

"Talk it out. Explain it to me. We'll figure it out together."

"Castiel and I...we've been sharing one body, one brain, for a long time."

"I know. It's unprecedented."

"Yes. No one knows what sort of effects this could have on an angel, on a human. The way we've been living. Most vessels aren't aware of what's going on while they're being used for heaven's purposes. But I...I share every second."

"It must be very weird."

"It is. There's...there's this bleed. This...mixing. Of us. We're two beings, two entities, but in some ways...we're almost not."

Jimmy was aware enough to realize that he'd gone limp, leaning against his father. Dad was supporting most of his weight, keeping him close and safe. It let Jimmy take himself away from his physical body, retreating into the realm of thought and expression. His voice sounded echoing and vague to his own ears. The landscape around him shifted from a drab apartment to a barren wasteland of white on white, then to a prison of golden fire.

"I'm listening, Jimmy. Keeping talking."

Dad's voice, rumbling and deep, surrounded Jimmy in a cocoon. It reminded him of what he was doing, why he was here. He had to figure it out. He had to understand.

"Castiel is trapped, Dad."

"You said that."

"He's being kept from us. He's being deceived into believing he's alone. It's awful."

A tear slipped out of his eye. Dad's blunt, callused thumb wiped it away.

"But he's not alone. I'm here. And I'm...I'm seeing it too."

"What is it, Jimmy? Where are you? What are you seeing?"

"It's Hell."

"No it's not, son. You're inside your own mind."

Jimmy wandered down a corridor of twisting flame. The walls pulsed, loosely constructed of thick ropes of braided metal that shone like the depths of a blast furnace. Only he wasn’t looking into the furnace. He was inside it. He didn’t know why he wasn’t instantly immolated, disappearing in a puff of steam and carbon ash.

"It's fire,” he said. “It's hot and burning and bright. It feels like death. It feels like torture."

"What color are the flames? Are they red?"

"I...I don't know. It's hot. It's bright and burning. My eyes hurt from the light."

Jimmy heard the screaming. It wasn’t his voice. He didn’t understand why it wasn’t. He was only touching this dimension on the smallest and most impersonal of scales, only a corner of his mind interacting with it, like tipping a toe into an ocean, and yet it still threatened to overwhelm him utterly. It could wipe him out in an instant without even trying to, like a man destroying a gnat while wiping a dish.

Dad’s voice was solid and calm, a tether out of the maelstrom. "All we've heard about Hell, it's red there. And the light doesn't hurt you. The demons do."

"No demons here. Just me and Castiel. Mostly Castiel."

"What color is the fire?"

"It's not fire. It's molten metal."

"What color is it?"

Jimmy caught his breath. He could feel himself blinking, inside and out. It felt like rubbing sand into his eyes with his thumbs. Castiel was a brilliant spark, a single point of light surrounded, buried, almost drowned by fire, white all but disappearing into…

"It's gold. It's bright and burning gold."

"Then it's not Hell, Jimmy. You're not in Hell, and neither is Castiel. We can get him out. We can get you both out."

Jimmy pulled in a deep breath through his nose and mouth. He could feel the heat on the fragile membranes, drying him out, threatening to blow him away. He had to hold on. He had to be strong for Castiel.

"Do you hear that?” Jimmy said. “We're gonna get you out."

Castiel didn't answer.

X~*~X

Jimmy fell silent, leaning into John's side with the sort of full-body sprawl that was normally only seen in exhausted elementary-age kids. It had been years since even Sammy had leaned on John like this, and Jimmy himself never had. When he came to them, he'd been too old, too skittish, too damaged by the drunkard who had used him for a whipping boy. It wasn't until the first time they fought this demon that he even let John hug him for more than a couple of seconds.

And now he was practically comatose on top of John, completely checked out. Not out of reality, exactly, but certainly out of this version of it. John looked up at the ceiling for a moment and squeezed his eyes shut, praying for strength.

Then he looked to his other boys, the ones who were currently sharing this plane of existence. Sammy had hauled a number of books into the living room and was leafing through them, and Dean stood by the phone, the earpiece held loosely in his hand. He was looking at John, jaw clenched tight. He'd waited as patiently as he could, but his edginess had worn through in the tapping of his toes and the quiver of his body, set to run if he only knew where to go.

"You get hold of Bobby?" John asked. He'd been ignoring the goings on in the room, completely focused on trying to guide and understand Jimmy's disjointed ramblings through his dual psyche.

Dean bobbed a short nod. "He's gonna start searching through the lore. He doesn't think it will help much, though. He said 'balls' about five times."

John grunted. He wasn't sure it would help much, either. Ever since Castiel had introduced him to Bobby, both men had done all they could to gather books about angels and heavenly lore. There hadn't been many that weren't full of religious gobbledygook, and Cas had dismissed most of them out of hand as "Medieval fanfiction," whatever that meant. 

Castiel was always and ever their most reliable source on this sort of thing. And now they couldn't reach him. Might never be able to reach him again.

No. He couldn't think like that.

John looked up and met Dean's eyes. "What are you thinking?"

His middle boy had good instincts, good analysis on anything pertaining to the life. More than Jimmy, Sammy, or even Cas, Dean seemed born to be a hunter. He and John often stayed up late, talking about monsters and demons and ways to kill the things that went bump in the night. Since John started taking him on hunts, things had never gone more smoothly. There was no one he would trust more to look at this situation and figure out what was going on.

Except that this was about Cas. Dean had...something special with Cas. They all knew it was there, John especially. Dean was Sammy's big brother, and he was the most intense about that aspect of his life. Mostly, John figured, because Dean was a sheepdog type. He needed to look after folks, and he could do that most effectively with Sammy. He took care of all of them, Jimmy and Castiel and even John sometimes, but Sammy bore the brunt of his devotion.

But there was something about Cas. From the moment Dean figured out that the angel existed, their bond had been particularly strong. He and Jimmy rubbed each other the wrong way a lot, he looked up to John as John had once looked to his SO, and he guarded Sammy the way a bear guarded a cub. But Dean and Castiel had something else.

John hoped it wouldn't impair Dean's judgement. They both knew Castiel was in trouble. Was in agony. Jimmy wouldn't shut up about it, but even if he hadn't mentioned it, John thought maybe Dean would know somehow.

Truth was, though, that Dean pushed the hardest when he was running on pure emotion. His jaw tightened, his eyes sparked fire, and every movement was tense and efficient and graceful, his body in perfect concert with his mind and his heart. When Dean wanted something bad, so bad that it filled his entire being with want, no obstacle could stand in his way. And the thing Dean wanted the most was to keep his family safe.

Thus it was now, John saw. 

Dean's eyes hardened to points of green flint, obsidian hard and razor sharp. "What am I thinking? I'm thinking it's time to kill a son-of-a-bitch demon, that's what I'm thinking."

The corner of John's mouth curled up in a smile. Trust Dean to cut straight through to the simplest solution. There was a touch of weariness in it, though. This was something they had discussed many times before.

"We still don't have any more of a line on this demon than we did yesterday, dude."

"Yeah, well, enough's enough." Dean slammed the phone back into the cradle, making it jangle in protest. "The damn thing has been messing with our angel way more than we even knew about. We gotta get down to brass tacks and just slice throats until we find the right one."

"It's not gonna be easy. We've tried before."

It had all been unfortunately random and fruitless, despite the immense care they had taken in their activities. The choosing of a good site where they could draw the sigils and wards, far enough away from civilization for privacy, close enough that they could use the site on a regular basis. The gathering of the necessary materials: herbs, candles, blood. Finding a night when Dean and John could get away without worrying the other Winchesters.

Then they looked through the demon lexicons, of which there were many, and chose a name. Sometimes Bobby had suggestions. Sometimes they heard something on a hunt, or from another hunter. Sometimes the spell fizzled because the demon they chose was dead or otherwise unable to obey the summoning. In that case, at least they knew it wasn't the demon they were seeking.

But often the demon they called appeared, imprisoned in their Devil's Trap. Then, always, the disappointment when no glimmer of brilliant white light was seen, when no vial of stolen grace was found. And Dean and John asked questions. 

Eventually, John made Dean leave the room while he...questioned...more vigorously.

So far, it had all been for naught. John's promise to Castiel that he would one day destroy the demon and retrieve his grace remained unfulfilled.

Now, Dean's face was naked, revealing his rage at both past failures and present impasse. "We gotta try, Dad. What else can we do? That bastard is trying to kill Cas."

"Or at least keep him from completing his mission." John looked down at Jimmy's dark head, resting limp and quiet on his shoulder. "That...creature...finally succeeded in crippling him completely."

"We gotta do something. Not just because...not just because it's Cas. Though that would be enough. But because this has to be about... The rest of it. This has to be about them doing everything they can to wipe out Cas. Because he’s the only being on the face of the planet that has any chance of stopping it, and they know it, and they have to snuff him out so they can get their damn showdown. Cas was in their way. This has to be all about that."

"Dean." 

The sharp clip of John's voice brought Dean up short. John tipped his chin across the room. He was looking at Sammy.

The rustling of Sammy leafing through books had halted. He was watching Dean with great solemnity, his young face almost as hard and set as Dean's. It was not a look John had seen on his youngest before. It suited him. Sammy knew there were deeper currents flowing in the room, issues he had never been informed of, and he was ready to accept them.

Dean's eyes followed John's, flicking over to Sammy. For a moment everything halted as Dean considered what to do. Dean had committed to protecting Sammy from the last truths, the worst truths, for as long as possible. They all had. Sammy had enough on his shoulders, far more than any other fourteen-year-old in the world, possibly in the history of the world. Did they have to tell him the rest? Did he have to know that all of this—the blood of Azazel in his veins, the tainted children who were his brethren, the angels and demons and the ancient struggle that threatened him and his family with torture and death—was all leading up to the end of the world?

Dean looked to John, his eyes pleading for some direction. John's shoulders slumped. If only they could stop here, if only they could keep Sammy innocent of this last, awful secret for just a little longer. 

But it was too late. The instant Castiel went down, the clock had started on the Apocalypse. Dean and John both knew it. Sammy needed to know it, too.

Reading the answer in John's body language, Dean straightened up, drew a breath, and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he stepped over to where Sammy sat on the floor, surrounded by books, and sat next to him.

"Sammy, dude, there's something we gotta tell you."

Sammy raised his chin, jaw firm, mouth set. Bracing himself to receive the blow that he saw about to land. And Dean started explaining exactly what the angels and demons were expecting the two of them to do.

John's heart broke a little bit more.

X~*~X

Dean did most of the talking, with John only occasionally chiming in. Sammy listened, asking clarifying questions now and then, mostly concentrating on taking it in. Jimmy remained quiescent on John's shoulder, shivering under the soft hoodie, his arms pulled tight to his stomach as if to stanch a gut wound. 

When it was done, Sammy sat back, staring across the room with an expression empty of emotion. A book rested open in his lap, his hand loose on the pages. Dean sat there, looking steadfastly into his face, his chest heaving for breath as if he had just run a race or lifted a weight almost beyond his strength.

"We're supposed to be the perfect vessels for Lucifer and Michael," Sammy said. "So they can destroy the world and make it into something new."

"Got it in one." Dean was grim and hard, too accustomed to this horror to even be angry about it anymore. Though he had been, when John and Castiel first explained it to him. Oh, yes. Dean had been angry.

"It's not going to happen," Jimmy said. His voice was clear and sharp in the quiet room, his tone the quiet sort of confidence that did not require volume or stridency. He knew it to be true, and so he stated it simply. "We're not going to let it."

Sammy looked up to meet his gaze. "That's what this is about. What it's all been about. Azazel, the blood, the special children. We're supposed to bring on the Apocalypse."

"Azazel wants to open the gates of Hell and release hundreds of thousands of demons into the world," Jimmy said. "And then, yes, he wants to release Lucifer from his cage so the end times can begin."

"That's why Cas is here. That's why he traveled back in time. To stop it."

"Yes." Jimmy sat straight, pushing away from John. He sat upright on the sofa, not leaning back into the cushions, though he didn't try to shake off the hand John kept on his shoulder. He watched Sammy steadily, without pressure, without tenderness. The time for coddling had passed. "Castiel rebelled against his superiors who wanted to destroy the world. He chose to side with us, with humans, with the ideal of free will and all the mess that comes with it. It cost him dearly, but he never regretted his choice, only the consequences it had for me."

"The demon that came back with him in time. It knows about the Apocalypse, too. That's why it has to kill Cas."

"That's right. Castiel has been too successful. He's changed things already, so many things, in so many ways. They...those bastards, the monsters that want to destroy humanity...they couldn't let him get away with it."

Dean swallowed, tipping his chin upward in defiance. His voice was harsh. "Cas isn't done yet. We still need him, no matter what he thinks. If he dies, the bastards win."

Jimmy nodded. "We can't let that happen."

"No." John squeezed his shoulder, more proud of his sons—all of his sons—then he could ever express. "And we won't."

"So what do we do?" Sammy looked to him, then to Dean and Jimmy in turn. "We've got to fix this. How?"

"There might be a counterspell," John said. "We have Bobby working on that. It would be a good start."

"It's not any spell I ever knew or read about," Sammy said. "And I've read a lot of lore. Do any of you know what it was?"

John shook his head. "There's too much we don't know."

"Bobby hadn't heard of anything like it, either," Dean said.

Jimmy sat thoughtful, blinking down at the carpet. "All I know is what I felt. It had to do with the grace, that little vial half-full of Castiel's grace. The demon got us out beyond the wards, and then it...harmonized the grace it held with the grace Castiel still possesses."

"Like...quantum entanglement?" Sammy asked.

Jimmy nodded slowly. "Exactly."

Dean rolled his eyes, and John had to sympathize. Trust these two to pull out the big words no one else understood.

Jimmy was still going. "Then, when the demon did whatever it did to the grace in the vial, the spell affected Castiel in the same way. How many spells can there be that involve an angel's grace? It must be incredibly hard to get hold of. There's no reason for such spells to be in any of the books we can get our hands on. Maybe heaven even had a policy of destroying such lore if it ever got written down. Imagine how dangerous that would be, to allow such knowledge to exist on earth. No." He shook his head. "We're not going to find this in a book."

"Then what..." Sammy narrowed his eyes, looking at Dean. "That's why you were talking about slitting throats until you find the right one."

"You've been summoning demons at random, haven't you?" Jimmy didn't sound as angry or disappointed as John might have expected. The kid was too far beyond it, too jaded and numb to be able to pull out much emotion. He just looked at John and Dean, his head shivering in something like disapproval. "You are such idiots."

"We had to try," Dean said, but his voice wasn't as defensive as it would have been if this secret had come out some other day, when they weren't all simply terrified that they would lose Cas. "We had to do something."

"I can't think of many things more stupid than summoning whatever demon your finger landed on in some lexicon." Jimmy stared at Dean, clear-eyed and stern. "You could have called up another Azazel. A knight of Hell. An infernal monster capable of breaking your wards and Devil's Traps. Anything."

"Well, we didn't, okay? We accomplished approximately jack shit. So lay off, man." Yep, the calm in the room was rapidly burning off.

"Simmer down," John said, and Dean looked away. John turned to Jimmy, pulling him in again. "You too, kiddo. I know you're upset, and you have every right to be. Yes, we could have done any of those things. But I made a promise to Cas, and I had to try to keep it."

"Without the name of the demon, you might as well have been throwing darts at a barn wall."

"We know," Dean snapped. "And we did it anyway, okay? What else do you want from us?"

"Wait a second," Sammy said, sitting up straight. "You're saying that if we knew the demon's name, we could summon it?"

Dean turned back to him, combative stance fading. "Yeah. That's where we were headed with this."

"And then we could get it to undo the spell, or give us Cas's grace, or at least find out what it did."

"Or just kill it," Dean said.

"But we don't know its name," John said. "That's kind of been our problem."

"Well, what do we know about it? Maybe we could figure it out."

After a second of contemplation, they all turned to Jimmy. He paled under the scrutiny and leaned back into the couch, scrubbing a hand over his face. "You think I haven't thought of this before? I don't know that creature's name any more than any of you do."

"Yeah, but you know more than any of us," John said. "You've been in Cas's head, or as close as anyone can get to it."

"You said you've seen stuff from the future," Dean said. He bounced up to his feet, unable to sit on the floor anymore. His voice was suddenly eager and light again. Full of hope. "Just images and impressions, I know. But there's gotta be something in there that will help us."

"I told you how hard it was to grasp, too, didn't I? How confusing and bright and painful? Angels don't perceive things the way humans do. It's all messed up in my head."

"Yeah, but it's there." Dean spread his hands. "C'mon, dude. We gotta try. For Cas."

Jimmy groaned and leaned into John again, closing his eyes. Of course he would try. They would all try. They would do anything they had to do.

Sammy stood, too, leaving the books on the floor. He looked into Dean's face, head tilted back. "If we're going to go straight for the demon, maybe there are other ways we can try, too."

Dean tilted his head, regarding his little brother with the respect of a fellow hunter. "What are you thinking?"

"For once, we know where the demon is. Or where it has been. The park, the woods. The little girl named Tilly. Maybe there's even an actual dog. We could try tracking him—her—it." Sammy shook his head distractedly. "We could try tracking the bastard in the physical realm, too."

"Yeah, good idea." Dean reached out to pat the kid on the shoulder. "Good thinking, Sammy. But you'll have to tell me the rest of the details you guys left out."

Sammy took a breath and raised his chin. "Of course. But...I need to ask you a favor."

Dean paused, his hand falling to his side again. "What?"

Sammy looked around, meeting Dean's eyes, then John's and Jimmy's. "I think you should call me Sam from now on."

Dean's shoulders slumped. "Sammy..."

"No." The boy looked back to him, his shoulders straight. He was still shorter than Dean, still forced to look up to meet his eyes, but he wouldn’t be for long. That was already evident. "You tried to protect me for as long as you could, and I get it, I do. I even appreciate it, or maybe I will after I get over being mad about there being yet more secrets in this stupid family. But you told me now. I'm fully a hunter now. I'm Sam."

John swallowed at the lump in his throat. "Son..."

"I know." Sam turned to look at him, giving him the same strong, clear-eyed regard he'd given Dean. "I know this is hard. You wanted me to stay a kid. You wanted at least one Winchester to be innocent, just a little bit, just for a while. You lost that today, the demon took it from you, from us. And that sucks. But if we're going to do this, you can't think of me as Sammy now. You can't think of me as a little kid. It was Sam Winchester who faced the Apocalypse in the future Cas came back from, the future he sacrificed himself to prevent. And it's Sam Winchester who will face the Apocalypse now."

John's chest heaved. Jimmy was silent at his side, frozen in understanding and regret. Dean's eyes were too bright, and he had to look away.

"Okay," John said, his voice almost too low to hear. He cleared his throat. "Okay. You made your point. You're Sam."

"It's Sam Winchester who will face the Apocalypse," Jimmy said, his voice carrying the intonation and solemnity of prophecy. "It's the Winchesters who will stop it all before can begin."

"That's the plan," Dean said roughly. He grabbed Sammy—Sam—by the shoulder. "Let's go, you dork. We got a demon to run to ground."

John nodded. "I'll stay here with Jimmy. We'll...work on remembering."

Jimmy sighed, but he nodded. 

They had their battle strategy. It was time to go.


	15. Book Four: Chapter 3

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day  
Book 4: The Name of the Demon

**Chapter 3: With My Feet on the Air**

Jimmy sat frozen, listening to the footsteps of Sam and Dean rushing away down the hall outside. Dad rested next to him on the sofa, his arm still around Jimmy's shoulders, holding him warmly but not too tight, not so close that Jimmy felt confined and trapped. Dad rode that line a lot, constantly testing how close he could get to Jimmy without getting too close, without triggering Jimmy's defense mechanisms hard enough to make him flinch or back away. He'd gotten really good at it in the past few years, or maybe Jimmy had finally left Mr. Baker far enough in the past that John Winchester no longer evoked that old devil with every casual move.

"You okay?" Dad asked, and Jimmy realized that he'd been staring off into the distance again. 

In his head, Castiel's scream was starting to get ragged, which shouldn't be possible. It wasn't even physical.

Jimmy turned his head to stare at Dad straight on, his answer wordless but plain. Dad grimaced. "Yeah, dumb question. I know you aren't."

"Castiel isn't," Jimmy said, compelled, even now, to keep reminding his family that the invisible Winchester was the one in trouble. He could never forget. They shouldn't either.

"I know." John sighed and rubbed his upper arm. "Okay, what do you want to do? How can I help try to reach into that brain box of yours, start pulling out what we need?"

Jimmy shifted where he sat, hugging himself as a shiver rocked through him. "I don't want to...work on remembering."

"I know it's hard, but we gotta try..."

"No, I mean..." Jimmy leaned back into his father's side, seeking warmth. "I do want to try. I want to do everything I can to help us figure out how to nail this demon to the wall. But first I gotta try to help Castiel."

"Can you?" Jimmy knew Dad didn't mean to sound so deeply skeptical. But he really, really did. "I thought you've been trying to communicate with him and it hasn't been getting through."

"No, that's true. I can't talk to him, and he thinks that we can't hear him, either. But I can. And I think… I think I might be able to reach him a different way."

"How?"

Jimmy hugged himself tighter, biting his lower lip. He truly wasn't sure that this would work at all. He wasn't sure if it was even possible. But the idea had been niggling at the back of his mind ever since the car crash last summer, when he had been the one to save Castiel instead of the other way around. 

That was when he had first learned how to delve into the realm of mind and spirit and find the spark that was his angelic brother. If he could do that while coping with shock and hypothermia and broken ribs and internal bleeding, he really ought to be able to help Castiel a lot better now when he was warm and comfortable, supported by his father's strong right arm.

"I've told you that we're...mixed up together. We're too close. We bleed into each other. All the time, and more and more as time passes, despite everything we both do to keep us separate."

"Yeah? And you think this will help you now?"

"It'll have to. What I saw earlier... He's making it worse by struggling so hard. Every time he pushes against the spell, it tightens further and hurts him more. But he can't help it, he can't stop fighting. He never will, not as long as he thinks we're in trouble."

"What are you going to do?"

Jimmy stared across the expanse of grayish-white carpet, a broad salt plain baking in the sun. "I'm going to go inside there, back to the cage that's burning Castiel alive as we sit here. And I'm going to try to take charge of him the way he's taken charge of me thousands of times."

Dad blinked. For a second he didn't breathe. "You're going to...possess him. The way angels possess humans."

"I'm gonna try."

Dad held him tighter, squeezing Jimmy hard into his side. Jimmy let him. He rested his head on his father's chest and closed his eyes. And he disappeared back into the burning wasteland inside his head.

X~*~X

Jimmy walked down a passage of braided gold, molten metal twisting and pouring, constricting and expanding as in the rhythm of breath. He held himself at a remove, forcing himself not to feel the heat, the pain, the isolation. It was easier now that he'd been here once before and knew something of what to expect. He had a purpose, a mission, and he intended to complete it.

His shoes set down on the shining fire, again and again, ripples spreading out from each touch like sonic waves as the golden corruption responded to his touch. He did not feel the impact of his steps, though. It was as much gliding as it was walking, which was fitting, since there was no need to walk in this place. But Jimmy maintained the image of himself as a young man in a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, moving silently through halls of torrid flame that flowed and melded and bent together in an unending kaleidoscope of bright agony.

After a time the narrow vein began to widen. Jimmy no longer walked on the metal but floated above it, pressing onward by the dint of his desire to do so. An invisible force resisted him, like the heat of a fire, a wall of intensity that tried to keep him out. He was not deterred.

The passage widened yet further, a cylinder opening on all sides, and Jimmy drifted outward as if rising from a flower with the opening of its petals. It expanded into a broad spherical space like a womb, a cave, a planet. The walls twisted gold and tarnished black, and nowhere was pure white to be seen, not even a hint of it. Castiel's grace had been fully subsumed and perverted by the Hellish spell, and it encased him completely.

Suspended in the center of the metallic womb was the cage. It was not a cube, nor a sphere, nor any other geometrical shape Jimmy could have named. It was extra-dimensional, for one thing, as was every other construct in this place. But to Jimmy's perception, it appeared as a golden shape, oblong, shifting continually, bulging with lumps here and there, then constricting against them, flattening them out, until another bulge appeared somewhere else. 

It was the evidence of Castiel's struggle, his constant fight to punch through his prison and escape. There was nothing Jimmy wanted more than to see him succeed, to see Castiel's brilliant angelic fist pierce through the molten corruption and blast apart the cage with the power of his purity and will. But it was impossible, because Castiel was fighting himself, that part of him which had been changed and ensorceled by the demon.

"Castiel!" Jimmy cried, more out of reflex than anything. He knew his brother would not be able to hear him. But oh, how he wished he could.

Jimmy caught his breath and held himself in stillness again. He had a task, and he knew he could complete it. His will was powerful here, here in the depths of his own mind. He breathed deep for a moment, then brought his will to bear with all the force of his righteous rage. The opaque appearance of the cage faded to translucence until he could see Castiel inside. His mind chose to make the angel appear as his twin, another young man with dark hair and blue eyes, his body twisted and contorted in his agonized struggle, his mouth open in an endless scream.

"Castiel," Jimmy said again, though he knew Castiel could not hear. It was uttered softly, almost to himself. The words became another focus of his will. "Castiel, stop fighting. Please, let me help you."

Jimmy stretched out his hands as if he could reach Castiel with his body. If Dean could have seen it, he would have said Jimmy was trying to use the Force, and he would have teased him for being the Obi-Wan of the family, old and wise and bossy and skilled in spiritual power. The thought sharpened Jimmy's focus, bringing his will to bear yet more fully. Star Wars was a movie. Castiel was his friend.

"Let me in, let me in, let me in." It became a chant, low and intense, uttered through gritted teeth. Jimmy had tried before to shield Castiel from pain and injury, on that awful day of the crash, and he had failed to relieve Castiel’s pain in any measurable way. He could not fail today.

At first it didn't seem to be working. There was no change: Castiel struggled as the cage morphed and tightened against his every move. The walls of the globe pulsed and shone with sickening light. Tension wracked Jimmy, manifesting as pain in his shoulders, his back, as he strained to reach Castiel.

He did not allow himself to think that it wouldn't work. He could afford no doubt. It would work because it had to. That was all.

Quantum entanglement. He and Castiel weren't just mixed and mingled...their spirits were synchronized on a profound level previously thought impossible. A consequence of how they met, perhaps—both injured, both wounded, both mutilated and mangled spiritually and psychically. They had grown together like two branches cut and grafted to a new trunk. In healing they had wound together, bound together, adopted family of the Winchesters and each other.

How many times had he or Castiel "come forward" or "faded back," trading control of Jimmy's body between them? Thousands. Tens of thousands. So many times that it had become a reflex, no thought, no uneasiness, no fear. The trust between them was absolute and unbreakable. 

This was the same, only reversed. Jimmy had once read _The Sword in the Stone,_ Castiel following along with interest, and he remembered the way they had both struggled to imagine living life as Merlin did in that book, backwards, growing younger in his own perception and older in everyone else's. Merlin had described to young Arthur the way he had to do things—as in a mirror, reversed. Both Jimmy and Castiel had found the idea fascinating and baffling. Even Castiel, with his vast experience of time and traveling through it, had been grateful that he did not have to live his life in reverse.

Now Jimmy had to figure out how to do it not in time but in spirit and space. This was the final barrier between them. They shared minds. They shared Jimmy's body. Now they had to share Castiel's spirit. 

The only hesitation Jimmy felt was that he had no opportunity to ask Castiel's permission. They were always very careful about that, though over years the asking and giving of it had narrowed to the smallest of spaces, the barest of thoughts. But Jimmy had no other option. This was the only way to reach him.

Then it happened. It was like passing backward through a sheer waterfall, not of water but of fire. The sensation poured over Jimmy in an electric wave, sharp and shocking, overwhelming and paralyzing him. Then he was through, and the cosmic vastness of Castiel surrounded him.

Angels were...huge. Somehow, even after thirteen years of living with one, Jimmy had never quite grasped this. But Castiel—injured, crippled, imprisoned Castiel—was unimaginably immense. Possessing him was like possessing a skyscraper, one that existed on all dimensions. Being trapped in Jimmy must be incredibly confining for Castiel, like a phoenix whose wingspan stretched from horizon to horizon somehow being crammed into a shoebox.

And now Jimmy, fragile creature of dust and clay, had propelled himself into this colossal space. The expansion stretched his mind almost to the breaking point. It would have broken other minds, he knew with no sense of ego, only acknowledgement of fact. There were reasons that he was fit to be an angelic vessel. One of them was his ability to bear this, no matter how narrowly.

Then the pain hit him. It was incredible. Terrible. Overpowering. Just as Jimmy stepped inside him, Castiel struck out once more, and the corruption struck back. There was no way to resist the pain and almost no way to endure it. It had to be borne, and so it filled everything and blew it all away. For a moment Jimmy forgot who he was, where he was, what he was. Nothing existed but the agonizing fire exploding through the entirety of his being.

After what seemed an eternity, the pain abated enough for Jimmy to recall himself. It did not recede completely, though. From the trembling exhaustion Jimmy felt in Castiel, it was clear that it never did. But as he froze, holding himself still in the coffin-like space of the golden prison, the pain abated enough that he was able to think and be himself. If he'd been in a physical body, he would have been breathing hard, trying to regain his senses.

A split second of silence, stillness, and Castiel exploded in panic. He understood that he had lost control of himself, and his mind had gone white at the realization. He fluttered against Jimmy's control, pounding himself against the sides of this new cage like a terrified bird.

"Castiel, Castiel, it's me, it's me. Calm down, it's okay. I'm here to help you."

Surely Castiel would be able to hear him now that he had invaded this prison so completely and utterly. Surely Jimmy had earned the right to be understood.

But Castiel continued to struggle, now not against the golden corruption but against Jimmy’s will. No words had any effect. Though Jimmy had found a way to circumvent the spell, it still held Castiel in isolation, unable to hear his brother’s voice.

Jimmy winced and held himself in silence and stillness, begging for Castiel to understand. If he made any move at all, if he even twitched against the molten bands that held him imprisoned, the pain would overpower him again. He had to resist the overwhelming urge to move, to fight, to seek escape.

Evil and pestilence radiated from the walls of the cage, sizzling against the boundaries of Castiel’s spirit. It was causing contact pain, as heat from a fire or the noonday sun would burn against unprotected human skin. Jimmy forced himself to bear it quietly. The trial was a sore one.

He concentrated on thoughts of peace, willing it to spread throughout his mind, throughout Castiel. If Castiel couldn’t hear him, maybe he would be able to feel him. The tension that had contorted Castiel’s spirit slowly began to fade as Jimmy willed it gradually away from each limb of the immense creature he now possessed. The heart of Castiel was star-bright and shining, untouched by the corruption of his grace, his life-blood, and this Jimmy touched with the gentlest of caresses, soothing and loving. _My brother, my brother. Be well. All is well._

Softly, softly, little by little and bit by bit, Castiel calmed. The fluttering panic slowed, then stopped. The angel was still, resting in Jimmy’s grip, though he pulsed with uncertainty and barely controlled fear. _Jimmy? Is that you?_

Knowing that words would not cross the barrier, Jimmy sent another jolt of peace through it, instead. The fear in Castiel’s spirit faded yet further, though it didn’t entirely disappear. They were still trapped in a golden prison of corrupted grace, after all.

_I…I understand. You can see and hear me, though I can’t do the same. Yet I feel the effects of your presence. You…somehow, you achieved what was thought impossible. You reached back to me and inhabited me as I inhabit you. I know we cannot travel back in time, but I retroactively grant my permission for this act. You did the right thing._

In that moment, Jimmy’s love for Castiel all but choked him.

_Yes, I feel you. Yet I cannot observe you. I suppose this is what is meant when they told humans to walk by faith and not by sight. It’s rather difficult, I must confess. But I do very much appreciate that you came. That you’re here._

If only Jimmy could ask Castiel the name of the demon, or at least what he knew that might lead them to it. If only he could assure Castiel that they were working to fix this, that they had a plan and they would not give up until they had him back. If only he didn’t have to go back and “work on remembering” with Dad, but instead could stay here with Castiel, shielding him from this awful place.

_I feel your frustration. I wish we could talk better than this, too. I suppose you probably want to tell me something._

Jimmy’s amusement crossed the barrier.

_It has not escaped my notice that the pain has diminished almost entirely. In fact, with you here, I feel no discomfort from the spell at all. Perhaps one thing you wanted to tell me is that I should stop struggling, that I am harming myself with my own desire to escape._

Jimmy sent him a burst of pride.

_Hmm. Yes. That was one thing. Thank you. I will take your advice. It will be…most difficult for me to remain still, to stop fighting, but I did not seem to be accomplishing much. And I suppose it must have disturbed you to hear my cries and be unable to do anything about it. I hope this spell is not also causing direct harm to you._

Love. Peace. Understanding.

_I suppose another thing you wanted to talk about would be the demon. I'm sorry, I have no more information to give you. I know that the creature is the same one that attacked us in Pontiac, the same one that traveled with me back from the Apocalypse, but you probably already deduced that. I know nothing more._

Resignation, not surprise, followed by encouragement. By now Jimmy was finding it surprisingly easy to express himself only in emotions. The medium had limitations, but he'd succeeded in his quest. Castiel wasn't in pain anymore. And the longer they stayed in this inward space, sharing thoughts and mutual reassurance, the more peaceful and together Castiel became. His agitation was soothed by Jimmy's companionship, and his strength had returned rapidly.

Being trapped and in pain sucked, it sucked a lot. But the worst thing the spell had done to Castiel was isolate him from the Winchesters. Everything else was bearable, but not that.

_You should return to the waking world soon. You've been here for a very long time._

Surprise.

_Consciousness is a strange thing, and time plays games. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it more than I can express in words. But you should go. I will remain still in silence, waiting for you to rescue me fully._

Determination.

_Yes, I know. Go now. Free me from this prison._

One last mental touch, like a warm grasping of hands in regretful farewell, and Castiel nudged Jimmy gently out of the space he had possessed. Again he passed through the fiery waterfall, frozen in shock at the pain and power of it. Then he was rising rapidly out of the golden womb, through the tunnel, across the snowy plain, back to conscious life.

Jimmy gasped and opened his eyes. Shadows stretched across the living room, showing how late the day had drawn while he was under. Dad still held him comfortably to his side, but at Jimmy's movement he tensed, arm tightening around his shoulders.

"Jimmy? You okay?"

Jimmy raised his head from Dad's chest, sitting up on the sofa and stretching out his shoulders and back. His stomach rumbled. "I'm fine. Castiel and I found a partial solution. He's not in agony anymore. For now, anyway."

Dad sighed, and Jimmy was close enough to feel the tension slowly drain from him. "Good to hear." He patted Jimmy's shoulder blade. "That was a hell of a job, kid."

Jimmy turned on the sofa to look in his face. "He's still trapped, though. The corruption is painful, but no longer unbearable. It's going to keep trying to swallow him fully, burn into his core. It's still pushing in on him. We have to get him out."

Dad nodded. "We will."

Jimmy stood from the sofa to stretch his legs, looking around. The room had retracted from the strange delusions he had endured earlier, becoming once again just a dingy living area in a second-rate apartment. The walls were dirty, the carpet stained, the door thin. Normal, ordinary. Home.

The nausea from his bloody nose had passed, and he knew he needed to eat and regain his strength. Usually by this time in the day one of them was cooking supper or calling for takeout. "Are Sam and Dean still out hunting?"

Dad shifted on the sofa, then stood up abruptly as if he couldn't be still for another second. Jimmy could see the disturbance on his face, which until now had been completely solid and strong, displaying nothing but calm. For Jimmy's sake, that had been. Dad was worried about his younger sons out there hunting a demon on their own, and Jimmy couldn't blame him.

Still, "I'm sure they're fine," was all Dad said.

Jimmy bobbed his head, a short, decisive affirmative. "Of course they are. I've seen glimpses of them in Castiel's memories of the future. They're amazing together, the most unstoppable team of hunters the US has ever seen. Legendary."

Dad's jaw tightened. "Right now they're just eighteen and fourteen, though."

"Kids, I know. Babies by some estimates. But they're Winchesters. They have teeth."

X~*~X

They'd been tromping through the woods for way longer than they should have been when Dean finally thought he might have spotted something. He whistled, waving his little brother over with broad sweeps of his left arm, pointing with his right. "Yo, Sammy! Is this the clearing you were talking about?"

Sammy had been wandering about twenty yards to Dean's left, still in sight but far enough away that it took him a minute to reach Dean, crashing through the undergrowth with little of his usual grace. They were both keyed up and anxious, many of their woodcraft skills taking a backseat to their need to just find what they were looking for.

The kid was scowling. "I told you to call me..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Dean rolled his eyes. "It's gonna take some getting used to, all right? Now, c'mon. Is this the place?"

Sammy—Sam—stepped toward where Dean was pointing, peering through the trees. The clearing was oblong and sloping, full of tall grass and flowers, just like Sammy had described on the way over here. "It might be. My memories are...a little fuzzy."

"I get it." Dean put a hand in the middle of Sam's back, nudging him toward the clearing. Sam was already moving, but he didn't seem to mind the assurance of Dean's presence at his back. "It must have been a crazy time."

"Yeah."

They stepped into the clearing, looking around. Dean's nostrils flared. He thought maybe he could catch a hint of sulfur, a trace of the demon that was messing with his family, trying to kill his brother. Might have been his imagination.

Sammy stepped slowly over to a certain spot, lifting his feet high to avoid the long strands of grass. He put a hand to his face. "You smell that?"

Dean nodded, moving to stand next to him. "Sulfur."

"This is the place. Where she...it...showed up."

Dean turned around where they stood, studying the scene from all angles. This was where the demon had stood when it pulled out Castiel's grace and twisted it, mangled it, using Hell and magic and unholy spells to torture and imprison the best angel on Earth. A shiver ran over his arms and upper back. He thought he could feel the remnants of it, the evil tainting the ground and the air, making even the sky seem darker, more clouded.

At his shoulder, Sam's breath was starting to come faster, his entire body tensing up. Dean turned to him, frowning in concern. Sammy was staring away into the trees, his eyes wide, too dilated.

Dean got it. He reached out to grab the kid's shoulder, pulling him back from wherever he'd been going. "Hey. Chill, big guy. We're okay."

Sammy shuddered, a quick, hard movement that passed over his entire body in an instant. He looked to Dean, blinking, wan and chagrined. "Sorry. I..."

"Don't sweat it." Dean squeezed his shoulder. "It makes sense, okay? Last time you were here you were...you were up against the wall. The guy who should have been able to handle any threat, any enemy... Castiel, he was down, and you were basically alone against the worst bitch our family has ever faced. You and Jimmy weren't remotely prepared for it. But it's different now, okay? I'm here, and we've both got enough holy water and salt rounds to down a pack of hellhounds."

Sam smiled shakily. "You took the Colt, too, didn't you?"

Dean shrugged. "Might have, yeah. Don't tell Dad."

"He probably already knows. He let you take it."

"Point."

Sam pulled in a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, then looked around the clearing again, his eyes clear, his movements purposeful. "What exactly are we looking for, anyway?"

Dean shrugged. He nudged at the grass where they stood with the tip of his boot, searching through it almost strand by strand. "Sometimes demons, especially powerful ones, leave traces behind. If we can find a residue, like, say, sulfur, or a scrap of cloth, or—best of all—some blood, we can use it to track the bitch down."

Sam knelt in the grass and started searching through it just as Dean was. "You know it's not actually a girl, right? We don't know what that thing is."

"Dude, I don't care if it's male or female or good red herring. Demons are bitches and deserve to be called out for the bitches they are."

Sam snorted. "You're such a jerk sometimes."

"Yeah, well maybe you're a bitch, too."

Sammy's head darted up and he glared at Dean with more venom than Dean had ever seen on his young face, eyes narrowed, lips flat.

Dean laughed and ruffled his hair, which was especially easy since Sam had put his head at waist height. "Calm down, man. If I call you a bitch, it's not because you're a demon. It's because you're a snot-nosed little doofus with girly hair and a stick up your ass."

Sammy paused, considering this for a moment, then nodded in acceptance and went back to his search, combing through the grass with meticulous care.

Dean stepped away to have a look at the trees at the edge of the clearing. It was a long shot, but he was really hoping to find a little twist of cloth caught on some sharp branch or something. The chances of finding blood were so vanishingly small as to be barely worth considering, but Dean couldn't help hoping. It would just be so nice, basically an instant end to it all—he and his dad would throw the blood into a spell and presto, demon kebabs on the menu for tonight.

As if to mock his optimism, Dean's stomach growled. Man, he was hungry.

Then it went to shit. Or maybe went to hell would be a better expression. A low, rumbling laugh purred through the woods like nearby thunder and Dean and Sam both pulled up short, eyes wide, breath halted in their throats.

Sam stood up in the grass, his face almost blank with terror, and Dean was at his side in three long strides. They looked around with sharp, jerking movements, neither sure where the sound was coming from. Both knew what it was, though. The demon had come back to the scene of the crime.

Dean had a bottle of holy water in one hand and the Colt in the other, and Sammy's hand was on his arm, not grabbing, just connecting. Another rippling laugh poured through the air, and Dean spun, trying to find the source. Sam turned with him, following his steps in perfect synchronicity.

"Show yourself, bitch!" Dean yelled, lips twisting around the words as if they were projectiles, bullets firing from his throat. "Don't be a pussy! Face us like a soldier!"

"Oh, but I'm no soldier."

The voice oozed through the air like dirty oil, slicking everything it touched. Dean shuddered and held the Colt tighter, feeling like he might never be clean again. He turned, looking for the demon, but there was nothing, just trees and grass and Sammy, holding onto him.

"What are you, then?" Dean asked. "I know you're a bitch, don't have to tell me that. Prove me wrong. Come and face me."

"Oh, Dean, Dean, Dean." The voice sighed, seeming to both approach and retreat at once. "You're just not very smart, are you? You have no concept of what you're dealing with."

Sam gripped Dean's arm in sudden excitement. "Oh yeah?" he called, loud and assertive, no longer afraid in the throes of sudden inspiration. "You wanna scare us? Tell us you're some famous demon from the old lexicons, someone we can look up and read all about. Tell us about all the angels you've fought, all the humans you've corrupted. Are you Crowley? Abaddon? Baal? Are you Legion?"

The voice laughed, slithering through the air once more, echoing from all sides. Dean held firm, tired of playing by its game. He was not afraid of this thing, and he wasn't going to let it think he was.

"Legion? Oh, no, little human. I am not Legion. I am one. But I am mighty. And I have allies."

"What do you mean?" Sammy's voice was harsh, and his grip on Dean's arm was starting to pinch.

The demon laughed. "You'd like to know, wouldn't you? You'd like me to tell you everything. You'd like to know my name."

As it spoke, the voice seemed to swing around them, coming from the left, from the right, behind them, before. Then, on the last word, it came from everywhere and blasted in on them in full surround sound, so piercing and overpowering that Dean's hands instinctively fled to his ears. Beside him, Sam fell to his knees, his gasp of pain buried in the awful noise.

"You get nothing. You learn nothing. There is no help for you here. There is no hope for that pathetic creature you call your brother. I am ancient and wise, far too canny to fall for your simple human tricks. My ally is far more powerful than anything you have ever faced, anything you ever will see. Were my ally to feel the need, it could step in and devour you with four mouths at once. But there is no need. I am too much for you."

The voice became a physical thing, a blast of air thundering down from the sky, driving the Winchesters to their knees in the grass. Dean pulled his hands away from his ears with a mighty effort. He'd dropped the holy water, but he still held the Colt. He gripped it in both hands and held it out straight, chest heaving, mouth open and panting in the wind. Just give him a target, he prayed, to what or to whom he could not have said. Give him a target and he would blow it away, no matter what force, what power tried to intercede.

The voice laughed again, every reverberation of sound like nails being driven into Dean's skull. He winced but held his ground, pointing the Colt at the deep darkness that had descended on the wooded hill. 

"Look at you, tiny human, with your tiny weapon. You think I fear that? You think I fear you? I do not."

"Then show yourself!" Dean yelled. "Stand where I can see you! If you're really not scared of this gun, let me shoot you with it!"

The voice cursed, deep and guttural, in a language Dean didn't know and had never heard the shape of before. He knew it was a curse, though, by the tone and the emotion, by the sharp blast of heat that seemed to drive sparks into his eyes, his ears, his hands. 

It wasn't just a profanity, though, like Dean proudly considered part of his own lexicon. It wasn't a simple "shit balls" or "holy fuck." This was an old-fashioned curse, the kind that went on for several sentences and was probably as creative as all hell, calling down death and destruction and all manner of unpleasantness to strike Dean for his insolence.

Dean found this encouraging rather than frightening. He'd struck a nerve. The demon wanted them to think that it was impervious to threats, that their words meant nothing to it. But his and Sammy's repeated accusations of cowardice had succeeded in angering it.

If they just poked the bear a little longer, maybe it would finally rear up and show itself. Dean struggled to his feet, panting, and swung the Colt around the clearing as he searched for any hint of a target.

"Pussy!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "You're no warrior! You had to use a disguise to even get close to us. You're a sneak and a cheat and a liar! You couldn't get near to my brothers without using the face of a _little girl!_ You didn't even dare to do it when the strongest Winchesters were out, me and my dad and Castiel. You went after our support staff and rookie instead."

Even in the maelstrom of the invisible attack, Sam couldn't help making a noise of protest at this. Dean gave him a shrug and a hard look, daring him to disagree. Sammy huffed out a sigh, shoulders slumping. 

The interplay passed in seconds, and Dean yelled into the darkness again. "And you know what, pussy? Coward? Even then, even after getting my brothers out of the wards, into your trap, out where you had the advantage and complete control of the terrain, even then it was all trickery and ambush and nasty little spells. You're nothing! You're a charlatan! You're a big, fat, freaking _wimp!"_

The voice roared in wordless and unholy rage. A blast of air rushed down from the sky, driving Sam and Dean to the ground, blowing the grass outward in all directions as from the center of an explosion. Dean held onto the Colt, but the streaming air made it impossible to see, and he was forced to close his eyes by the insane strength of the wind. It seemed about to pop his eyeballs out of his head with the sheer force of speed.

“Filthy little _fools!”_ the demon thundered, loud enough that Dean feared for his eardrums. “I have become a _god!_ My name is written in more texts than exist in all the libraries of men, and after the new world is made on the bones of the old, my name will be written in thousands more. For in wiping out that pustulent little angel, I have helped to write the history of the new era in which demons and gods will rule the earth once more, and I will be honored for my deeds. You are _nothing._ Your family is _nothing._ You are a stain upon the earth, one that will presently be washed clean, and we will no longer have need even to rule you as slaves!”

Well, they had definitely poked the bear. Dean opened his mouth to yell back, but he knew instantly that it was useless. The wind was too strong, too loud, too all-encompassing. Any words he tried to produce would be jammed back in his throat.

For a moment, he worried that maybe he'd pushed a little too far. Maybe the demon would be able to crush him and Sammy where they stood. Maybe taunting into a mindless rage the entity that had managed to get the best of Castiel hadn't been his smartest move.

With another wordless roar of fury, the immense pressure of the wind abruptly ceased. The voice cut off in mid-shout, there and then gone, and Sam and Dean lay in the grass, panting and spent, staring at each other in wide-eyed bewilderment. The sky still seemed dark and overcast, but that was probably because it was way too late, now, the sun sinking beyond the mountains.

Dean sat up cautiously, patting himself down for injury, and found none. He reached over and grabbed Sam, too, checking him over despite the kid's squeaky protests and squirming to get away. "Okay, okay," Dean said after awhile, breathless, still catching up. "We're okay. We're okay."

"You'd better believe we're okay. We're freaking awesome." Sam finally succeeded in pushing Dean's hands away and bounded to his feet. Dean stared up at him, eyebrows raised. Sam was vibrating—not with fear, not with anger at Dean's reckless tactics, but with excitement. He looked down the hillside, bouncing on his feet as if ready to run.

"Yeah? We are?" Dean hauled himself to his feet with a bit more difficulty, checking his guns and his holy water as he went. The demon was gone, and it had appeared to leave them entirely whole and unharmed, but Dean wasn't one to trust appearances. "How so, chief?"

Sammy turned to him, a wide, manic grin splitting his face. It did nothing to reassure Dean. "Yeah, yeah, we are. We're so, so awesome. Didn't you hear? Didn't you catch it?"

Dean shook his head wordlessly. He had no idea where this triumphant joy was coming from.

"Damn, Dean, you're a good hunter." Sam reached out to punch his arm, prompting a scowl of confusion from Dean. He rubbed his arm where Sam had struck it, then spun his fingers, prompting him to get on with it. Sammy obliged, still grinning huge and feverish. "You did the perfect thing, taunting it like that. You got it to give us _all sorts_ of clues. Man, that was awesome."

"I did, huh?" Dean considered for a moment, then nodded firmly. "Of course I did."

"C'mon, let's go!" Sam began picking his way through the long grass, heading downhill back to the park. "We gotta get home and call Uncle Bobby!"

A split second late, Dean trotted after him. "Do we? What for?"

"Well, we should probably talk to Jimmy, too." Once they hit the trees, Sammy moved even faster, rushing down the trail he'd already taken three times before. "He can probably corroborate a few things, make sure we're on the right track. But we've got it, Dean. I'm sure of it."

"What do we got?"

"We've got everything we need to figure out the name of the demon."


	16. Book Four: Chapter 4

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day   
Book 4: The Name of the Demon

**Chapter 4: Me and My Friends Understand the Future**

Sam Winchester ran up the steps to the apartment, three strides ahead of Dean clattering behind him. He might as well have been flying. He barely felt the impact of his feet on the concrete stairs, barely noticed the stained and cracked walls flying by on each side. He was entirely focused on the goal, on the thoughts swirling in his head, conjecture and certainty and the seeds of triumph.

The apartment was unlocked. They’d all been in too much of a hurry to bother. Not that it would have mattered—had any miscreants dared to breach their home, they would have had John Winchester to deal with. Sam rushed inside, barely allowing time for a smile at that image.

“Dad! Jimmy!”

They were in the kitchen. Jimmy leaned over to look out the wide doorway into the living room, and Dad stood by the stove, a crusty spatula held in his hand like a club. The smell of cooking meat filled the air, sending a rush of saliva to Sam’s mouth. He was already busy on the other side of the living room, though, fumbling for a notepad, a pen, the phone.

“Hey, son,” Dad said, watching Sam’s frantic rush with bemusement. “I’m making hamburgers. You hungry?”

“Sounds great, Dad.” Sam held up a finger. “Right after I get hold of Uncle Bobby.”

Dean was in the room, now, closing the door Sam had left swinging wide. “Man, that smells awesome. I’m starving. But how ‘bout you explain yourself first, little man?”

Dad raised his eyebrows at them. “You guys have a good hunt?”

In the same breath, Dean was talking. “How’s Cas—any change?”

Excited chatter broke out, everyone trying to be heard at once. Sam ignored it all, listening to the phone ring on the other end of the line. _Please pick up, please pick up..._

Once earlier today, he had thought the same as he stood at a phone, waiting for a voice to answer. This time it wasn't terror beating inside his chest, trying to get out. Urgency gripped Sam's heart and made his feet dance impatiently on the carpet, but he was not afraid. The answer was within his grasp, if he could only reach out and take it.

The deep voices of Dad, Dean, and Jimmy had suddenly stopped competing with each other, silence fallen in the Winchester home. Sam looked up, mildly curious. All three of them were looking at him with great expectation. Ah. They must have finished explaining whatever they'd been explaining to each other.

"Well?" Dean asked, making a motion as if magnanimously granting Sam permission to speak. "You want to share with the class? What makes you think we can figure out the demon's name now?"

"Because it gave too much away," Sam said. "You heard it, same as me."

"Yeah, but I don't think I heard it the same way as you did. I don't have your freaky geek brain, remember?"

Sam huffed in exasperation. "Shut up, Dean. You're plenty smart, much as you like to pretend otherwise."

Jimmy gave him a smile, amused and affectionate. Sam noticed, finally, that Jimmy's eyes weren't as agonized, as fraught, as they'd been when Sam and Dean had left. Jimmy and Dad must have figured out some way to help Cas while they were gone, otherwise Jimmy would be pacing the apartment, or, worse, catatonic on the sofa. Good. They could talk about the hows and whys later—for now it was just good to have Jimmy back on the team, coherent and paying attention.

Dean groaned and rolled his eyes. "Whatever, man. You're the one who said you know how to figure out the name we need, and I still don't get it. Give."

Uncle Bobby wasn't picking up, at least not fast enough for Sam. He hung up the phone and dialed another one of Bobby's numbers. One of them would have to go through eventually. Unless Bobby had gone out for a book or something, maybe. Didn't matter. Sam would sit here listening to the phone ring all night, if he had to. 

Sam leaned against the wall, holding the earpiece to his head, and looked up to meet Dean's eyes. "It was the way it talked in that last speech to us. Did you hear the way it phrased it? 'I have become a god.' Not 'I am a god,' or 'I was a god,' but 'I have become a god.'"

"Yeah?" Dean tilted his head. "And what did that tell you?"

"This is a creature that once consorted with gods, but wasn't one of them," Jimmy said.

Sam nodded, grateful for at least one brother who got it. Cas would understand too, if only they could ask him, and Sam's heart twinged with longing to talk it all over with him. They always had such fun. 

"But now it feels that it's become a god," Dad's voice rumbled. "What else did it say?"

"Lots of stuff," Sam said. He pointed at Dean. "C'mon, what else?"

Dean rolled his eyes at being called on like a kid in class, but did his best to oblige. "It said that its name was written in tons of places, and after the Apocalypse ended the world it would be written in lots more."

"Boasting," Dad said. "It's really proud of that little trick it pulled, locking Cas in a cage."

Jimmy held out a hand toward him, as if to tamp down the rage roiling in Dad's voice. "Yeah, but back up on that. What demon do we know that has its name written in lots of places? Or maybe not a demon, but a minor god, something from antiquity, maybe?" He raised a eyebrow at Sam.

"It called itself ancient and wise, and spoke as if it had known a time when demons and gods ruled the earth," Sam said. "Remember the spell?"

Jimmy nodded, his face paling. He was already leaning on the edge of the wide doorway that led into the kitchen, but now he leaned a little harder.

Yeah. Of course he remembered.

Sam grimaced in sympathy. "It said more stuff in the same language while Dean and I were out there. I think, maybe, if I can repeat some of the syllables to Uncle Bobby, he might be able to help me figure out what language it is."

"And then we’ll know what civilization this douchebag came from," Dean said, understanding dawning. "We can get a list of names from their mythology and pantheon."

Sam nodded sharply. The phone was still ringing, on and on. Damn it, why didn't Bobby hook up an answering machine? He dropped the earpiece on the cradle and drew a long breath, trying to calm down.

Dad and Dean and Jimmy were looking at him, eager and excited. Hope in every face. Sam looked to Jimmy.

"Once we get the list, though, we're not done. We'll have to narrow it down even further. Hopefully to just one name."

Jimmy fumbled behind him for a kitchen chair and pulled it over so he could sit down, his knees suddenly weak. "You're still gonna need me to dig into Castiel's memories, or my memories of his memories, and try to figure it out."

Sam nodded regretfully. Dean looked at Jimmy, now, his face compassionate but probing. "You said you've seen...more than once... You saw the end. The stuff that happened right before Cas jumped back in time."

Jimmy swallowed. "Yes."

"The demon grabbed him then, started ripping at him. It must have been incredibly traumatic. It's possible... I know it's a long shot, but... Maybe Cas knew its name, maybe he recognized the bastard, especially if this bitch is from an ancient civilization. For all we know, our angel might have known its name from back when it originally walked the earth. The thing sure acts like it's been butting heads with Cas for millennia."

Jimmy's jaw tightened. "I wouldn't be surprised, honestly. No, I think you're on the right track. Castiel might have known the demon's name, but the events of the Apocalypse, of the jump through time that left him unconscious for months... They might have blocked it out."

"Be kind of amazing if they hadn't, really," Dean said. His voice was rough.

Sam picked up their address book and looked for another of Uncle Bobby's numbers. "We'll get the list. At least then you'll have something to work off. You won't just be shooting into the dark."

"Good idea." Jimmy took several breaths, his hands rubbing on his jean-clad thighs, fingers shaking. "Anything...anything you can gather will be a help. I'm...really not looking forward to this."

Dean crossed the room to stand next to Jimmy. He had grown taller than the oldest Winchester boy, even when Jimmy or Castiel was standing, but the height difference was especially pronounced now. Dean stood tall and straight, shoulders tight, and Jimmy slumped in a chair with his head down, dread in every line of his body. Dean put a hand on his shoulder and shook it in his roughly comforting way.

"We'll be with you every step of the way, dude. Anything you need, you just say the word."

Jimmy nodded. He didn't look up, though.

Dad stepped back into the kitchen, a rush of sizzling and steam as he rescued his hamburgers from burning. "At least eat a bite, boys. We've got a long night ahead of us."

"I'm always up for burgers," Dean said, stepping after his father. After a few moments to finish gathering himself, Jimmy followed.

Sam called another number.

X~*~X

"Okay. Thanks, Uncle Bobby." Sam gripped the phone tight, staring at the list of names on the paper under his right hand.

The voice on the phone was gruff and sincere. "You fellas need to use my panic room or anything like that, you come straight to South Dakota. It was that angel of yours helped me build it, after all. I know he said I woulda had the idea myself in a decade or so, but I don't mind having it now, either."

Sam smiled tightly. "We're hoping we can take care of it here and now. Sooner the better."

"Yeah, I getcha. Good luck, kiddo. Tell everyone I've got your backs."

"I will."

Sam hung up the phone and picked up the list of names, staring at each—scrawled across the page in his hurried, messy script—as if he could pick out the right one just by wanting to. His fingers tightened on the edges of the paper, wrinkling it. The answer had to be here.

"Sam?" Dad stood in the kitchen doorway, his face as calm as he could make it, though Sam could read the worry in his eyes, the bend of his arm. "You should eat. I saved you a burger."

"Yeah, okay." Sam glanced up at him, then looked back to the paper. 

Dad reached over and snagged his elbow, steering him into the kitchen. Dean clattered at the counter, fixing a plate, and Sam shuffled over to the table to sit next to Jimmy. He set the paper down between them and looked up to meet his big brother's gaze.

Jimmy sat slumped in his chair, his face a picture of misery. The plate in front of him still held most of a burger, only a few bites gone from it. The crumbs and the stray lettuce leaf and strand of thin-cut onion showed the way Jimmy had been moving it around, partially deconstructing it. But he hadn't been able to enjoy it, which was a shame. Jimmy usually loved his burgers, and Dad was good at making them.

Now, Jimmy met Sam's look for a bare second before his eyes fell to stare at the simple piece of notebook paper that now waited on the table between them. It was just a college-ruled piece of looseleaf torn from one of Sammy's school binders, as ordinary and innocuous as anything in the world. It was no tablet inscribed with ancient runes, no plinth in a tomb. It wasn't even an old newspaper or a dusty leather-bound tome from the depths of a forgotten library. Yet this piece of paper might carry more import to Jimmy and the other Winchesters than any of those other important documents and carriers of esoteric lore.

"Anu, Ea, Ishtar, Marduk. These are Akkadian deities." 

Sam nodded slowly. "Uncle Bobby and I went over the sounds of the spell that I could remember. He was pretty sure it was Babylonian, though of course no one knows what that language actually sounded like. But all the clues seem to fit. An ancient time when demons and gods ruled, and men were only slaves to be used as their deities saw fit. How many thousands of texts include these names? There's no way to know—it's passed out of time and mind."

Jimmy nodded. He traced his finger down the line of names. "Long enough ago for a demon from that age to feel enraged at the loss of power and prestige, willing to bring about the end of the world just for a chance at glory again."

"Yeah." 

Dean set a burger in front of Sam, and he looked up long enough to give him a grateful smile. He dug in, doing his best to devour the whole thing in a few bites. They still had a lot of work to do. "Anything there catch your fancy?" he asked through a mouthful of meat and bun.

Jimmy's eyes swept back and forth, reading each name one at a time. His face was set, intensely focused on the task. After going down the entire list, though, he reluctantly shook his head. "None of them are standing out to me. Are these only the names of the gods?"

Sammy nodded, still chewing. "And a few figures associated with them." He swiped a hand over his mouth, brushing away crumbs, a smear of mustard. "If we have to get into the whole list of known Assyro-Babylonian names, that's going to take longer. A _lot_ longer. I really, really hope it's on this short list."

"Yeah, me too." Jimmy sighed and fell still, his finger tapping on the paper, at the edge of the writing. 

By now Dad and Dean had joined them at the table, listening to the conversation but not inserting themselves yet. They’d already had at a least a burger each, judging by the states of their plates, but they weren't shy about having seconds.

"Something else is bugging me, too," Dean said, his leg bouncing relentlessly beneath table.

Sam looked up at him, stuffing the last bit of his burger into his mouth. He raised his eyebrows, wordlessly asking Dean to go on.

"Something else the demon said. About how he had this awesome super-fantastic ally who was helping him out and was really powerful and stuff. Bitch was really happy about it, too."

Jimmy blinked. "You didn't mention this before."

Dean shrugged. "We were kinda occupied."

"We still are." Sam spread his hand over the page. "We've got business to take care of."

Dean nodded. "I know. I'm just looking ahead."

That was confidence in Dean's eyes, confidence in Sam and Jimmy's ability to suss out the demon's name so they could track it down and free Cas from his prison. It was already such a done deal in Dean's mind that he was already looking for other enemies, other potential flaws in the plan. Sam found it heartening and just a tad bit hilarious. 

Dad clapped Dean's shoulder, pride and some of the same amusement prompting a chuckle from deep in his chest. "That's a good soldier. Keep an eye out for the next battle even while you're fighting this one."

Jimmy folded his hands together, frowning deeply. It pulled down his eyes and made him look older than his years. Almost as old as Castiel. "I don't like the idea of this demon having a powerful ally. You make it sound like it's not even another demon, but something greater and stronger. What could it be?" He looked at Sam. "Were there any other clues?"

Sam looked down at the table, thinking hard. Something tugged at the edge of his mind, some strange remark the demon had made, perhaps, some unconscious indication of the ally's nature. But he was unable to dive deep enough into the memory to dig it up. Too much of his thoughts—the bright, churning, sparking surface of his mind—was completely occupied with _find the name, summon the demon, get Cas back._

After a moment he shook his head in distraction, his fingers tightening on the paper, pressing it to the cool surface beneath now beginning to warm with the steady pressure of his hand. "I can't...can't think of anything right now. We'll have to come back to it later..."

"After we get this bitch." Dean nodded decisively. "Yeah, we should do that first."

Jimmy blew out a short breath, then turned to Sam. He visibly straightened, pulling his shoulders back and firming his posture. His jaw clenched and his eyes were bright and full. "Let's do it. I'm ready."

Sam pushed his messy plate to the center of the table and set the paper more centrally, where Dad and Dean could read it upside down while he could see it with just a glance to the side. He turned his chair to face Jimmy more fully and reached out for his hand. "I know this is gonna suck for you. We'll be here the whole time, okay?"

Jimmy nodded stiffly, resolute but unable to speak. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. He accepted Sam's hand, folding it firmly in his, making the touch a lifeline between them. Then he closed his eyes. 

They didn't have to discuss it beforehand to know what they were going to do—Jimmy and Sam had always had an almost instinctive understanding of each other, especially once Sammy had become old enough to be part of the family business. They had often supported each other on research and brainstorming, bouncing ideas off each other and Castiel as they dug through the bullshit to find the truth. This was just another day in the Winchester life, but with the stakes higher than they'd ever been before.

Jimmy's eyes moved under his closed eyelids, sharp and fast, as if he were dreaming. But he remained sitting upright in the chair, his hand gripping Sam's. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, the sides of his face, and his chest heaved fast and faster. Sam squeezed his hand.

"Have you found the memory yet?" he asked. 

Jimmy nodded sharply, just once. His lips tightened in unhappiness.

"What are you seeing?"

Jimmy's lips moved, wrenching in a curl of distress and disgust. His teeth were clenched, and he forced the words out one at a time. "It's bad, Sammy."

Sam didn't correct the name. Jimmy could call him whatever he wanted to right now. "You're seeing the end of the world?"

"Yes. Dead angels...everywhere. Wings burned black on the earth. The sky...black. Boiling. Lucifer laughing with your mouth."

A chill ran over Sammy's neck and upper back. This was what Castiel had run from. This was what none of them had wanted him to know about, though the secret had finally come out today. Sam, possessed by the fallen angel who had split heaven in the earliest days of creation, possibly before the first humans even walked the earth. Sam, the perfect vessel of Lucifer, laughing at the death of angels and the triumph of demons.

Dean made a tiny noise of shock on the other side of the table, and Dad murmured nonsensical comfort. Sam swallowed through a throat suddenly dry as dust. Jimmy's hand twitched in his, and he squeezed it again.

"Let's move on from that," Sam said, the words sounding thready and faint to his own ears. "Can you...fast forward, to where Cas starts to jump back through time and the demon grabs him."

Jimmy pulled in a shaky breath. "Okay. Yes. Moving on."

More eye movements. This time it went on for quite a bit longer than before. Then they began to slow. Jimmy's breath calmed, his forehead smoothed out, and the beads of sweat on the side of his face began to dissipate. His hand loosened in Sam's, and, though he remained sitting upright, there was a subtle relaxation of his shoulders and arms.

Sam didn't get it. If anything, this moment should be even more distressing than the earlier part of the memory. Had Jimmy lost the plot, moved out of the memory completely? Where was he?

"Jimmy?" Sam kept his voice calm and composed, a tether to reality for Jimmy to grab. "Where are you?"

A second of delay, then Jimmy's lips moved, calm and gentle, almost emotionless. "I'm going to talk to Castiel."

"I thought you couldn't talk to him anymore."

"Not...conventionally."

As if anything about the way Jimmy and Cas interacted with each other was remotely "conventional." Sam huffed a short breath of amusement, but did not repeat the thought aloud. "Then how?"

"Through emotions, mainly. But...I'm trying to drag the memory along with me, down this evil golden passage. It's...jagged. It hurts my hand. But I'm pulling it with me. I'll show it to Castiel so he can help me with it."

"Will that work?"

"I don't know. But I couldn't do it on my own. The end of the memory was...too overwhelming. There was no sense of logic, no knowledge to be found in it. Only pain."

"You already tried to find the name? You didn't say anything to me."

"It was useless. I didn't bother. The only hope, now, is...this."

Jimmy fell silent. All of his tension had now transferred to Sam, though. It tightened every muscle in his body, and he sat forward in his chair, clutching Jimmy's hand in both of his. That delicious burger was threatening to come back up.

Dad leaned across the table and put his hand on Sam's arm. "Hey, bud. Relax. Jimmy did this before."

Sam looked over at him, blinking. Oh, yeah. While he and Dean were gone, Dad and Jimmy had figured out how to help Castiel, somehow, despite their earlier belief that nothing could be done. "What happened?" Sam breathed out, hardly daring to hope.

Dad shrugged. "I dunno." His lips twisted in a wry smile, his eyes dark with sympathy. "I was stuck where you are, on the outside, just hoping Jimmy would be able to do whatever he was trying to do. He talked about this same stuff, though, a golden passage, a fiery womb. Then he went quiet for a long time. Barely seemed to breathe. I was on the edge of calling 911 when he came out of it suddenly and said he'd done it, he'd figured out a way to help Cas cope."

"How?"

Dad hesitated. His face told Sam that he knew how crazy this was going to sound. "He...possessed Cas, the same as Cas has possessed him all this time. While that was going on, I guess they were able to communicate. Just not...'conventionally.'"

Sam blinked. He turned back to Jimmy, watching the minute tics and twitches of his face. He could not begin to imagine what sort of inward journey was going on down there where none of them could see. When this was over, he was so going to ask Jimmy about a million questions.

He was almost afraid to say anything for fear that the sound of his voice might disrupt whatever process Jimmy was attempting. But the burn of curiosity finally forced his mouth open. "Jimmy, where are you now?"

"The...womb. Or tomb. It's more like a tomb, really."

"Do you still have the memory?" 

"Yes. It hurts." Jimmy's fingers wrapped around Sam's palm, holding firm. The grip wasn't painful, and Sam was surprised that it didn't even feel uncomfortable or sweaty. It was just...firm. Maybe that, and Sam's voice, would enable Jimmy to keep talking this time, while with Dad he'd gone dark while buried down here in the depths.

"I'm here, Jimmy. Let me know when you're ready, and we'll start talking names."

"All right. Thank you, Sammy."

"Can you keep talking to me? Let me know where you are? We need to keep the connection open."

Jimmy was silent for a moment, his eyes moving back and forth, slow and steady, under his eyelids. "Yes. I think that's a good idea. I'm passing through the waterfall soon. It's going to hurt."

"Okay. I'm here."

A moment later, Jimmy gasped, his body stiffening in the chair. His face went completely blank, his hand frozen in Sam's. For a few seconds, stillness and silence reigned. It was like the connection between Jimmy's body and his mind had been cut. He didn't even breathe. 

Then it passed, and Jimmy slumped down again, breath pumping out of his lungs in a long exhale. Sam pressed his hand close and warm.

"You okay, Jimmy?"

"Yes."

The hairs on Sam's neck prickled, and he cast a wide-eyed glance at his father and other brother. Dad and Dean were gaping, wide-mouthed and paralyzed. They felt it too. They heard it too.

It seemed like Jimmy's voice was echoing. That was impossible. Surely that was impossible.

Sam swallowed. His voice came in an awed whisper. "Where are you, Jimmy?"

"I am with Castiel."

It was. It was echoing. Jimmy's voice echoed to them from far, far away, the thin, all-too-human sound of it rebounding and reverberating inside some immense space. It was astounding to Sam that those fragile vibrations managed to cross the impossible, unknowable distance back to them at all.

"Tell him we miss him," Dean blurted. Because of course he did.

Jimmy's eyes twitched. "He knows. I'm sending him love from all of us. He feels it."

Sam nodded. "Okay. Good. Do you still have the memory?"

Jimmy's hand twitched, and discomfort crossed his face again. "Yes. We're working on it. It hurts."

Sam forced himself to be still and silent, letting Jimmy and Cas do their thing. Part of him longed to be with them, down there in the psychic depths, in the cosmic immensity of whatever space they were occupying. Part of him was aware that he probably wouldn't be able to handle it, though. Jimmy and Castiel had built up their trust and their flawless teamwork over more than a decade of constant intimacy forced on them by these bizarre, unprecedented circumstances. None of the other Winchesters could begin to deal with this situation.

They would just have to trust the adopted Winchesters to figure it out between them.

A shiver passed over Jimmy's frame, as if he trembled in a distant wind. His eyelids moved; his nostrils flared. Sam held his hand and waited.

After what seemed like centuries, eons, but couldn't truly have been more than a minute or two, Jimmy spoke again. "The names."

Sam glanced at his list. "Anu. Ea. Ishtar."

Jimmy's eyelids moved but did not open. "None of those."

"Marduk. Shamash. Atrahasis."

"No."

Sam read down the list, pausing after each name, waiting for Jimmy, and Castiel through him, to mark the one that resonated with the memory. He wasn't surprised when none of the gods were it. 

But as the names passed his lips, one after the other, and Jimmy shook his head at each, as the list dwindled line by line to only a few names... Sam chewed the inside of his lip and squeezed Jimmy's hand, hoping and hoping that this was it, this was the one. If the name wasn't on the short list, this task was going to be much, much harder.

"Sargon."

"No."

"Naram-Sin."

Jimmy shook his head.

"Nur-Ayya."

Silence. Jimmy was still for a moment, then tilted his head in that stiff, curious way that so much embodied Castiel. It made Sam's neck-hairs prickle to life once again. This wasn't only Jimmy, but it wasn't only Castiel, either. It was the two of them, both in one, communicating in the same body, the same motion. 

The room was frozen, dead silent. They all held their breath.

"Nur-Ayya," Jimmy/Cas said. "Who was he?"

Sam glanced at the list, but there was no further information, just the name. Still, he thought maybe he remembered the name from his own studies, from the Epic of Gilgamesh, perhaps, or...

"A scribe," Sam said. "He was a scribe. Now he's a demon, but he used to be a scribe."

Dean blew out a breath. "His name is written on more texts than exist in all the libraries of men."

Dad nodded. "Right. At the bottom. Where the scribe's mark goes."

"And all of them lost now," Sam said, a harsh note of triumph dragging his voice out high and sharp. "All those tablets and scrolls buried in the sand or burned at Alexandria. He's nothing, just a footnote in history."

Jimmy/Cas nodded, slow and proud. "Nur-Ayya. That is the name of the demon."

"That's it.” Sam clasped his hand tight in exultation. “You got it."

"Come on back now, Jimmy," Dad said. He rose from the table, strong, broad hands pushing him up off the solid surface. Dean was already gone, on the other side of the room gathering what they needed for one more hunting trip before they slept.

"We've got it from here."


	17. Book Four: Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the time I originally wrote and edited this chapter, I recorded myself reading most of it aloud in a voice made deep and raspy by laryngitis. You know, kind of like Dean's or Cas's voice. So if you'd like to listen, here it is. 
> 
> [Book 4 Chapter 5](https://app.box.com/s/m8is7cmv18s5aqf01kzy)

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day   
Book 4: The Name of the Demon

**Chapter 5: If You Get Lost, You Can Always Be Found**

"This is it." Dad pulled the Impala up to the end of the dirt road, the disreputable old shack lurking under the trees. They had driven a fair distance into the wooded hills to reach this secluded place outside the city limits. Far enough away that no one would notice any strange lights behind the broken windows or hear any screams of rage and pain. Or, worst of all, run into any clouds of strange, shining smoke.

Dad looked over his shoulder into the backseat. "You regretting coming along, yet?"

Dean glanced back too, eyebrows raised, listening for an answer from his brothers. Sammy shook his head, mouth firm and grim. Jimmy was too exhausted to give any response at all, just staring back at them with large, dark-rimmed eyes, like a blue-eyed raccoon.

Dad looked forward, huffing out a breath that was half amusement, half resignation. "Yeah, okay. Everybody out."

They piled out of the car. Dean hauled a canvas bag full of herbs and spices and other spell ingredients, and Dad carried the Colt in his hand, pointed at the ground but ever ready, as if they might run into a beast on the ten steps to the shack. Sammy offered a hand to Jimmy to help him out of the car, and to all of their surprise, he took it, letting Sammy pull him up to his feet. Poor guy had to be totally worn out.

Dad led the way to the shack. Inside the door, he paused to light the Coleman lantern hung on a nail at head height, then moved around the small, creaky room, lighting the others. Dean moved to the other side of the room, knowing where he was going even the dimness, and started dumping out spell materials on the tilted wooden table against the wall. Jimmy and Sam stood still inside the door for a moment, taking it in.

Dean gave them a smirk. Yeah, it was sort of a work of art. Big Devil's Traps were painted on the ceiling and the floor in bright red. Both were reinforced over the cracked and pitted wooden planking with strips of duct tape and other sturdy materials, just in case whatever prisoner they'd pulled from Hell or points elsewhere had any tricks up its sleeves and thought it could break out by cracking the floor. That wasn't all, though.

Smaller Devil's Traps were marked on every wall, and even the leaning doors had been worked into large, spreading patterns. Warding symbols of every religion they'd ever run across filled every conceivable gap, with special consideration and prominence given to Castiel's favorite glyphs and runes. Salt and goofer dust and anti-possession marks protected every imaginable boundary, even a mouse hole down in a corner of the room. Every available surface was saturated with protection.

The tables, the gutted cabinet against one wall, the small set of shelves Dad had tacked up in the corner—all were covered with spell materials, bowls and cups, a book or two. As well as, of course, candles already half-melted, wax running over the wood beneath and cementing them where they stood, to show that John and Dean Winchester had used this room more than once.

Then, of course, there was the chair. In the center of the largest Devil's Trap on the floor, it dominated the room and immediately drew the eye. It was sturdy and heavy, by far the best-built furnishing in the place. Each foot was bolted to the floor with steel plates and rivets. Leather straps waited on the arms, the back, and the front legs.

Dean and his dad had gotten good at this. 

"I..." Jimmy blinked, slow and owl-like. "I don't know whether to be disturbed or impressed."

"Both," Sammy said, his voice a little too high-pitched. "I'm going with both."

"You wanted to come," Dad said, looking back at the two with a small frown. "I woulda been just as happy to leave you at the apartment, let Jimmy rest up."

They both shook their heads, shoulders straightening, spines growing steel. 

"We need to see this through," Sam said, a hard glint of battle lighting in his eye.

"I want Castiel freed as soon as possible," Jimmy said.

Dad nodded, accepting their commitment to the task. "We all do. Dean, hand me the sage."

They set up the ritual with the ease of long practice, straight lines of chalk marking the points, then the placement of the candles, the bowls of herbs. Into the central metal bowl went a piece of paper with the name of the demon written upon it and a dram of blood from a bottle they usually kept in the back of the fridge. It was Dad's blood, drawn monthly and preserved for this purpose. He wouldn't let Dean donate yet, though Dean had offered more than once.

When it was all set, Dad raised his head and looked at his sons. Sam and Jimmy now stood against the wall beside the door, as far from the main Devil's Trap as they could get. Their arms were around each other's shoulders in preemptive support, and Dean would never tell anyone just how sweet he thought that was.

Dad didn't seem to notice, just giving them another grim stare. "You ready?"

He didn't have to ask Dean. Dean was always ready.

Sam and Jimmy glanced at each other, then both nodded. They weren't the firmest, most confident nods Dean had ever seen, but they would do. Dad nodded back.

Dad lit a match and held it high above the bowl. The words of the incantation rolled from his mouth in a practiced burst. And he dropped the match.

Dean watched his brothers brace themselves, clutching each other and and squeezing their eyes shut as if expecting an explosion, a flash of light. There was nothing of the kind, of course—just a small movement of air, an almost inaudible _whooshing_ noise. And the demon was there in the center of the Devil's Trap, wide-eyed and momentarily off-balance.

Dean reached over for the Colt, which Dad had set down on a side table while they worked. He cocked the hammer, making sure to do it as ostentatiously as possible. Sam and Jimmy opened their eyes, and the demon turned to face him, in the same movement stepping back toward the chair. Dean raised the gun and pointed it, his arm true and steady. He stepped toward the circle, though he came nowhere near breaking the boundary.

"Nur-Ayya, I presume?"

The demon's lip curled.

Jimmy's breath came sharp and fast. "It's him. Her. It. I recognize it. He's still wearing the body of that little girl, Tilly."

Indeed, the demon stood there in the form a small child, her shirt bright white and fresh as if taken off her mother's clothesline just minutes before, her blue skirt delicate and dainty, swishing around her legs as she backed up. She—Nur-Ayya, the demon who sought Castiel's death with all the wiles of ancient evil—bared its pearly little teeth at Dean like an animal at bay.

Sammy swallowed hard, then nodded. "It's him."

Dean tilted his head, smiling down the length of the Colt's barrel. "Yeah, I knew it. You could say I recognized your foul stench when you were brought on board. Isn't that right, Nur-Ayya."

"Children." The word was made into a sarcastic greeting. The demon chose to use the voice of the little girl, high and sweet, horribly and wrenchingly twisted into something wrong, something awful. 

Even so, Dean heard the reverberations behind the dulcet tones. He heard the voice from the meadow, the one that had so roundly cursed and berated him and Sammy and tried to blast them to the dirt. He wasn't feeling much sympathy for this devil. "Yeah, that's us. Go ahead." He motioned with the gun in a "c'mon" gesture. "Call us by our names. I know you know them. You know you want to. We know who you are, and you know who we are. There's no hiding now."

The demon huffed, eyes glinting hatred, the pure black of the dead space between the stars. _"Winchesters."_

Dean smirked. "Yeah. I knew you knew us. Not such stupid little nothings now, are we?"

Dad snorted a laugh and patted Dean's shoulder. Up till now he'd stood back, letting Dean have his touchdown dance. He stepped forward, catching the demon's attention—the little girl's head snapped to follow him far harder than any true child could have done it.

"Nur-Ayya." That was satisfaction in John Winchester's voice, deep and fruity and dark. He'd made a promise to Castiel years ago that he would track this beast down, and now he'd finally kept it. "Give back what you took from my son."

A slow tilt of the child's head, back the other way, like an animal tracking movement. Then the creature's posture changed, straightening up, leaning forward. No longer at bay. It realized that this was not a swift death coming. It thought it had leverage.

"Why should I?" The voice of the child was even less pronounced now, the ancient evil of the demon leaching further into the purring intonation.

At least it didn't ask what he meant. At least it had sense enough not to enrage them more by failing to acknowledge that Castiel was, indeed, John's son, Dean's brother, a Winchester. It knew what they wanted.

"Because if you don't, we'll make you suffer." Dad waved an arm around, encompassing the entire room in a slow gesture of ownership. "I think you know that we can do that."

"You won't, though." Nur-Ayya lifted its chin, stepping back until it touched the chair. It laid its tiny, delicate hand on the heavy arm and trailed one fingertip along it. 

Dean really didn't care for the confidence in the bastard's voice. It sounded almost nothing like a little girl, now, all throaty reverberation and power. "What makes you think that?" he growled.

The demon sneered. "Because you're _Winchesters._ You _save_ people. You don't hurt little girls."

Suddenly Tilly was back, cowering against the chair, hunching over and hugging herself in terror. Tears sprang from her eyes, her face screwed up in fear, and her voice was clear and high and innocent. "Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me! I'm just a little girl! That monster inside me, he says if you hurt me he'll make me feel it all and it won't hurt him even a little bit! Please, please don't!"

When it began, Jimmy gasped and stiffened against the wall, clenching his hands around Sam's shoulders. Sam steeled himself, forcing his body to show no reaction. Dean and Dad, though, stood firm. Grim and silent. They weren't a bit surprised.

Dad crouched down to look the creature in the eyes, the fingertips of one hand landing lightly on the floor to keep his balance. "You don't have a very high opinion of us, do you, Nur-Ayya? That's because you're stupid."

"This isn't our first rodeo." Dean remained standing, holding the Colt steady. He bobbed his head in a moment of realization, his voice lightening. "That time you met us back in Pontiac, Illinois, _that_ was our first rodeo."

"We've dealt with dozens of your kind since then," Dad said. "You think we don't know all your tricks? You think we haven't figured out how to deal with anything you can pull on us?" 

Dean shook his head, tsking. "Still underestimating us. You haven't learned a thing."

Dad stood and crossed the room, fetching an implement they kept in a basket there. He brought it back over to Nur-Ayya, holding it across both hands to display it. A length of metal with a wooden handle on one end and a certain metal symbol on the other.

"See this?" Dad tilted the symbol toward the demon so she could see it more clearly. The dark metal gleamed wickedly in the phosphorescent light of the Coleman lanterns. "Custom-made branding iron. Got it down Texas way from a blacksmith we helped out a few years ago, sending on some ghosts that were troubling his property. You know that symbol on the end, don't you?"

Nur-Ayya was silent. The tears were gone, as well as the little-girl terror. But she remained crouching against the chair.

Dad nodded, slow and satisfied. "Yeah, you know. You know it'll trap you in that body, make you feel everything we do to you. You can probably tell that we've used it before, can't you?"

Nur-Ayya straightened to its full height, facing them frankly. Dean smirked. Maybe now it knew a little better what it was dealing with.

"You're monsters," the demon said lightly. It was not an accusation. It was the honest assessment of a very old, very experienced beast of the supernatural sizing up its adversary for the first time. "You don't care at all about the little girl whose body I stole. You just want what you came for."

"Oh, we care." Dean's finger tightened involuntarily on the trigger, and Dad shot him a glance. Dean took a breath and forced himself to relax, aware that the vehemence in his voice was betraying him. They were in control here.

"We care," Dad said, more calmly and coolly than Dean could currently manage. "But we also recognize that this girl is already a victim, and you're the one who made her into one, not us. Anything we can do for her will be a mercy, whether that's sending her on to heaven or getting her back to her former life. Either way, when we're done, she'll be free of you."

Dean took one more breath, then allowed himself to speak. "Anyway, we don't have to make you suffer, if you don't want to play it that way. You still have a choice here."

Nur-Ayya tilted its head, studying him with reptilian eyes, black and void. "Do I? You've already stated that there's no scenario here in which I leave on my terms."

"No. Frankly, I'd prefer to shoot you right now. But we can avoid the binding link and everything that goes with it, if you want. Just give us back Castiel."

Nur-Ayya threw its head back and released a burst of sordid, roiling laughter. It seemed to coat the room in filth, slicking everything it touched. "Castiel? That pathetic little creature? I cannot believe that even you care for such an insignificant bundle of torn grace and broken feathers."

"Stop trying to manipulate us." Dean spat the words out like buckshot. "You know what he means to us. And you know what he means to the world, or you wouldn't have bothered attacking him. You even had to get help from that ally of yours to do it. Cas is a little cracked around the edges, sure, but he's important. And he's _ours._ So give him back."

The demon sobered, meeting Dean's gaze frankly. It seemed, at last, that all barriers were stripped away. There was no hiding or obsfucating to be done, not anymore. Dean and John had pulled back every layer of deception until nothing remained but Nur-Ayya, the demon, its every intention and every modicum of power laid bare.

"Yes." Even its voice was more plain and forthright now. The tone of the little girl was almost entirely buried, the words of the demon having taken over. "Yes, I know how important this tiny spark of light is. He threw himself backward in time in order to change the world, dragging me along. Which was against my will, by the way. You think me evil for having torn and mutilated him in the journey, but in truth it was more than half a reaction of shock and terror at so rudely being ripped from my rightful place in time. Not that I regret hurting him, of course. It did help greatly in minimizing the damage he could do to our plans."

"But he still did a lot of damage, didn't he," Sammy said. His voice was flat and hard and certain. "He's changed the course of history."

Nur-Ayya turned to look at the two Winchesters standing by the door, looking them up and down in assessment. "Yes," it said. "He's done a great deal to frustrate our plans, which have been slowly coming to fruition for lo, these many thousands of years. You can imagine how very annoying that is."

The demon turned back to Dean and his dad, facing them with chin held high. "So you will understand when I refuse. I cannot give you back your broken, useless little angel. His grace is mine now. I've hidden it far away from here. Even if you kill me, you will have no way to retrieve it. And I will not break under torture, no matter what you do to me. The spark must remain snuffed. My allies will raise me and restore me to my rightful place when the world is ours once more."

Dean snarled, holding the Colt up a bit higher, finger tight on the trigger. "You tell us what you did with the grace. You tell us right now. You have no idea what I will do to you!"

Dad grabbed Dean's shoulder, holding tight and hard, and Dean caught his breath. He'd lost control again. A sideways glance at his father, though, showed that Dad was just as close to the edge as he was. To have come all this way, and gone through so much, only to fall down right at the finish line…

"He's lying."

Jimmy's voice, high and clear. The other Winchesters turned to look at him, hope illuminating their faces. Jimmy's eyes were wide, his face pale, his breath coming hard and fast. He looked like a man struck with sudden revelation, unsure what to do with it but knowing it was there.

"How do you know?" Sam asked.

Jimmy shook his head, but it was not a negation. It was the instinctive shiver of someone coming in from the cold, blasted by the difference in temperature and pressure. "I don't know... No. I do know. I feel it. I feel Castiel's grace. The creature has it on his person. I can feel it."

"How?" Sam asked, but Dad and Dean were already turning back to Nur-Ayya, firmly in control once more.

"Quantum entanglement, remember?"

Dean ignored the background noise, focused solely on the demon in the Devil's Trap. A smile was beginning to curve the corner of his mouth. This was end-game. This was checkmate. The Winchesters had all the power here.

His gun arm had started to waver. Now he drew it straight again, holding the Colt steady, lining up his vision along the muzzle so that the gun sight rested squarely in the center of Nur-Ayya’s forehead.

“This is how it’s going to go,” he said. “You have two choices. You can leave that little girl’s body in a skanky-ass smoke cloud, leaving the grace behind. You live, the girl lives—assuming you haven’t killed her already—we get Cas back. Or you can stay where you are and I’ll shoot you right now. You die, the girl dies, we still get Cas back. I happen to like the first way better. I imagine you might, too. Either way, though, we get Cas back. And that’s all I care about right now.”

His lifted his chin, daring the demon to cross him. “Decide.”

Nur-Ayya’s lip curled. “You won’t kill this girl. Not with your brothers watching. Your rookie and your support staff, yes?” It looked over at Jimmy and Sammy, dismissing them with a casual glance before turning back to Dean. “You value their image of you too much. You won’t force them to witness such barbarity.”

One last bluff, and this was the one that had some actual teeth. Dean hesitated, for a second only, but the demon saw it. Nur-Ayya smirked, wholly convinced of its victory.

Then Sam stepped forward. “Shoot it, Dean. Shoot it now.”

Dean looked over at him, his heart jumping in his chest. “Sammy…”

“Do it.” Now Jimmy stepped up, too, his hands on Sam’s shoulders. His face was pale and wan, bright spots of color standing on his cheeks as if he was running a fever. But his eyes were steady and his jaw was firm. “Kill that monster where it stands.”

Dean remembered, suddenly, and couldn’t believe he’d forgotten, that this was the demon who had murdered Jimmy’s parents and unborn sibling.

Dad squeezed Dean’s shoulder in wordless support, and Dean looked back to the demon.

“Guess you made your choice, bitch.”

He started to pull the trigger. 

Black smoke roared out of the girl's mouth, rocketing toward the ceiling in a geyser of billowing evil. Dean gasped and pulled his aim, swinging the muzzle of the Colt up on the pivot of his wrist. Fortunately the action on the old revolver was heavy, so he didn't waste a bullet. Cas had shown them how to make more, but the process was long and tedious.

The little girl's body thudded to the floor. Dad knelt down by her immediately, throwing an anti-possession amulet around her neck in case the demon changed its mind. Dean kept his eye on the cloud of smoke, watching it writhe and convulse around the ceiling of the shack. The creepy thing whistled and shrieked from one corner to the other, thrusting its ugly head into everything that even resembled a crack. Jimmy and Sam stared in sharp-edged anxiety, ducking instinctively when the boiling smoke passed too close.

It was no good. Every last egress in the entire building had been plugged with wards and runes and every protection in the book. It was leak-proof. The demon was trapped like a bug in a corked bottle.

Dean watched it thrash around for a few moments, taking satisfaction in its frantic captivity, then looked to his dad. Dad knelt by Tilly, checking her pulse. He felt Dean’s eyes on him and looked up, giving a short, relieved nod. 

Dean blew out a breath and closed his eyes, swaying where he stood. He was wholeheartedly glad that she was alive. But he hadn't been bluffing about killing her. Later, maybe, he would try to figure out what that said about him as a person.

Right now, he had other concerns. Dean opened his eyes and looked at his father again. "The grace?"

Dad was already searching through Tilly’s clothes. It took longer than it might have because he was being as gentle and respectful as possible. Then he paused, his hand on the tiny foot in its pink lace-up sneaker. He pushed two fingers between her sock and the side of the shoe. And he pulled out the vial.

The light wasn't the bright, brilliant white Dean remembered from the gym in Pontiac. It was glowing, yes, but it was not pure; it was not healthy. It was yellow with hints of gold and streaks of darker tarnish, pulsing and bubbling in the half-full vial like mud in a swamp. It looked corrupt and sick. It was...it was grace-pus. Dean felt ill just looking at it.

Dad held the vial between his thumb and forefinger, grimacing spectacularly. "Dammit. We forgot Nur-Ayya did something to Cas's grace. We forgot to make him reverse the spell."

Dean growled, horrified at his oversight and enraged at the demon's escape from the body where they could question it. He pointed his Colt at the demon roiling about the ceiling, and Nur-Ayya reacted, splitting in half where the gun pointed and rushing to the opposite side of the room.

"Son of a...bastard!" Dean spat, so blind with fury that he couldn't get his profanities right. “Fix it. Fix it right now!"

If a cloud of smoke could laugh, that was what Nur-Ayya did. Dean was sorely tempted to shoot it, just to see what would happen.

“Dean.” Jimmy’s voice. 

No, not Jimmy’s voice. Dean turned toward him, the Colt falling down to point at the floor. Jimmy had stepped forward, separating himself from Sam. And he wasn’t quite Jimmy. 

His voice was echoing again. Worse than that, his eyes and his mouth were...shining. White light was pressing out from his eye sockets and behind his lips, and this light was very much like the brilliance Dean remembered from Pontiac. Dean’s heart jumped into his throat.

Cas. Castiel was...leaking. The thin layer of flesh that separated the angel from the world...Jimmy, Cas’s vessel...was no longer enough to hold him in. What the hell. Just...what the hell.

Castiel turned to face Dean, blank white eyes seeming to pierce through to his soul. “It is all right,” his deep, echoing voice proclaimed, as if answering Dean’s terrified thoughts. “All is well. We are unharmed.” Dean heard the gentleness of Jimmy, the strength of Castiel, somehow paired and harmonized, neither stronger than the other. They were speaking together as one.

The other Winchesters remained frozen where they were in a tableau, John on the floor, Dean and Sam standing and staring in shock. Even the demon on the ceiling drew itself into as small an area as it could, folded into a ball of cloud that shimmered and shook.

"All is well," Jimmy-Castiel said again. They took one step toward the Devil's Trap, slow and careful, as if learning all over again how to balance, how to move and breathe and work in this shared body. Truly shared now, in every conceivable way.

They extended a hand toward John, and the light of grace behind their eyes and mouth shone brighter. "Give it to us. All will be well. The center is still pure. All that has been broken can be mended."

Dad stood slowly, pushing himself off the floor with one hand. The corrupted grace in the vial churned furiously as if sensing the nearness of the true grace, where it belonged, the purity of Castiel and of Jimmy. Dad held the vial out toward his oldest sons, his hand trembling only a little at the awe of this moment.

"Cas," Sammy whispered, and Jimmy-Castiel turned toward him, gentle and listening.

"What troubles you, little brother?"

"How, Cas? How can you mend this?"

A smile, beatific and glowing and strange. It spread across Jimmy-Castiel's face, transforming him from a figure of terror to a creature of pure joy, pure loveliness. "Quantum entanglement," they said, a note of pleased amusement lightening the heavy words. "The center is pure."

They turned back to Dad, beckoning with their extended fingers. John Winchester reached forward to cross the space between them and placed the vial in Jimmy's hand, Castiel's hand.

"Close your eyes," they said. And their fist closed on the vial with the swiftness of thought, shattering the glass.

Dean slammed his eyes shut, then had to cover them with his arm when that was not enough. The light on the other side of his eyes was terrible, overwhelming, and completely unbearable. Dean felt that he now knew what it meant to be at the center of a nuclear blast. In the first moment only, less than a second, the light was yellow and sick and wrong. Then the brilliance of an uncorrupted angel tore through it, transforming it to pure, pulsing white. Like the center of a star.

The light built and built, and Dean felt the heat of it on his hands, his face. It pressed through his clothes, then through his flesh, piercing deep with its radiant sheen. But it didn't burn. It didn't hurt. It was Castiel. It was Cas and it was Jimmy, and both of them had already touched him to his soul, so there was no harm here, no hurt. Only love and familiarity and brotherly harmony.

At last the physical brilliance began to fade, until Dean felt comfortable lowering his arm and opening his eyes. Dad and Sam were blinking, struggling to adjust, just as Dean was. Light filled the sordid little shack, far more brilliant than that of the now-puny and redundant Coleman lanterns. It shone from Castiel, from his face and hands and body. And behind him on the wall were the black shadows of two huge, beautiful wings, spreading far longer and taller than the shack could hold.

They were whole and complete, no sign of ragged feathers, no hint of brokenness or stiffness from past injuries. Castiel opened them wide, glorying in the freedom to do so, the ability to show them, at last, to his brothers and his father, his adopted human family. They were gorgeous, and he knew it, and the flapping of them was all but smug.

And Castiel laughed. Dean had never heard him laugh before, not like this, full and free and joyful. It held the easy ring of Jimmy's high giggle, the one that came out whenever Sam told one of his silly Laffy-Taffy jokes. It held the sonorous quality of Castiel's deep chuckle, the rare sound that came only when he was so comfortable and at peace that he could only express himself without words. It held every note of laughter in between those two extremes, ringing and melodious, in such an undiluted expression of happiness that Dean's chest felt full of light and he half-believed that he, too, could open his wings and fly away.

"All is restored," Castiel said. "Finally and at last, after this long sojourn and wandering, this fear and pain and struggle, what had been shattered and torn is made whole once more.”

Castiel stepped forward into the Devil's Trap and knelt down by the girl, the shadow of his wings flowing behind him with the movement, trailing on the wall, the ceiling, the floor. He touched Tilly's forehead with two fingers, and her chest moved in a deep breath, her mouth opening with the gasp, though she did not wake. Cas closed his eyes for a moment, the veil of his eyelids dimming the light coming from his face only slightly, and the girl vanished.

Dean stepped back to lean against the wall, his knees suddenly too weak to hold him up. Castiel rose, turning to face him. Affection and serenity beamed from his face, brighter than the light of purified grace. 

"Don't be afraid. The time for fear has passed." He looked to Dad and Sam, too. "She will wake in her own room, whole and unharmed. She will have no memory of the past few days, of her time as the mute and paralyzed victim of ancient evil. Her parents will be shocked, but also overjoyed."

Castiel then turned to the demon. Nur-Ayya had retreated to the corner of the shack furthest from where Jimmy and Castiel had made their transformation. The cloud of smoke was as small and still as it could possibly be, still glowing with erratic pulses of sickly light. In all ways, it managed to express terror and dismay even as a featureless ball of atmospheric disturbance.

Castiel crossed the room to it, each step slow and deliberate. Now that the desperation of the fight had passed, he was in no hurry. His family watched silently, letting him deal with Nur-Ayya in whatever way he chose.

Though the healing of his grace was obvious in everything about Castiel and would have been so even if he weren't shining from every inch of exposed skin, it had not changed the height of his vessel. He reached the corner and looked up at the demon, beyond his reach in the rafters of the shack. Then he lifted a hand toward it, a gesture of simple command neither furious nor urgent. And Nur-Ayya flowed to meet him, trickling down the wall bit by agonizing bit, as if the demon could not resist the silent order but dared to show its dread and reluctance in moving as slowly as possible.

In Castiel's hand, the smoke reduced further until it resembled nothing more than a tennis ball-shaped bundle of wispy darkness, trembling and quiescent and helpless. The angel turned back toward the center of the room, holding the demon before him, and looked up to smile at Sam. As if showing his little brother how insignificant and powerless the terrible enemy they had faced a few hours ago truly was. Tears ran down Sammy’s cheeks, contrasting with the huge grin that split his face. He nodded at his oldest brother, once, to show that he understood.

Castiel looked down at the creature in his hand. "Ah, Nur-Ayya." His voice was gentle and soft, almost loving, certainly pitying, with no trace of rage or grief. "What a pathetic thing you are, in the end. How long and how hard you fought and struggled and schemed, all to gain power for yourself, all to degrade those you considered your enemies and raise your own stature. And for what? All your long centuries of life, utterly wasted in every conceivable way. Were it only I you had hurt, I might have forgiven you. But you caused irreparable harm to Jimmy Novak, as well as to many other humans, and that I cannot excuse."

The ball of smoke writhed and twisted in his hand. Castiel didn't tighten his fingers, but simply let his hand rest open and loose, slightly cupped to contain the creature he held as if it were a physical object. The demon was held trapped and immobile by nothing but Castiel's will that it stay where it was. That was enough.

"Still." Castiel's voice lightened. "You did return my grace, in the end. You came here intending to put an end to me forever, but instead you have allowed me to fulfill my destiny in ways I could never have anticipated. Perhaps my Father did. The injuries and privations I have suffered were also necessary for that destiny, I see that now. What you intended for evil, my Father used for good. So I do owe you thanks, in a way. Thank you for trying to kill me, Nur-Ayya, now and thirteen years ago. In trying to ensure that the Apocalypse is begun, you have ensured that it will not be.”

"Cas..." Dean choked out, unable to keep silent any longer.

Castiel looked up at him. He nodded, for Dean alone. "It’s true, Dean. There will be no Apocalypse.”

“How… And don’t you dare say ‘quantum entanglement’ again, you dick. You know I don’t get it.”

Castiel laughed again, that pure expression of joy and love. “I told you, once, about the power of a human soul. Jimmy and I are joined as one now, as no angel in history has ever been. We belong to each other more wholly and completely than any of my brothers could have dreamed. All this time, using human vessels merely as tools, and they could have known this deep communion instead. Such a waste. Such utter foolishness. I pity them, in truth.”

“You are more powerful than all of them now,” Dad said, soft and understanding, and Dean threw him a glare. It wasn’t fair that even the old man had grasped this while Dean was still struggling to catch up.

Castiel bowed his head, acquiescing. “I am. Jimmy’s soul and my grace are blended in perfect trust and love. His is the power. Mine is the glory. Both are shared equally. My grace has been made perfect in weakness. Now, nothing can stand against us.”

He looked at Dean again. “There will be no Apocalypse, Dean, dear Dean, my precious brother and friend. There will be no Apocalypse because I will not allow it to begin. Not until the time my Father has truly appointed for it.”

He turned his eyes to the demon in his hand, and the light from them was terrible.

"Which, I do believe, is many millennia from now, when the human race has truly run to the end of its time. Not now, not ten years from now, when my foolish brothers had chosen to end this world simply because they could not wait any longer for our Father's plans to wend their way through history. Their impatience and hubris has led us here as much as your own violence and lust for power. So you can thank them, too, for this end you have come to."

Castiel nodded, slow and solemn, as he pronounced his final judgment. "You have served your purpose, Nur-Ayya. You have earned oblivion."

He closed his fist. The smoke vanished, and even the faint stink of sulfur was washed away. 

It was replaced with the fresh and living scent of rain.


	18. Epilogue: What About the Moon and Stars?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [YouTube Playlist,](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLelj9LO80m3sYyzg0uLH71ln7ohkdaq41) from whence came the titles. Suggested mood music: “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons and “Babel” by Mumford & Sons. Because _Welcome to the new age,_ and _I’ll believe in grace and choice._

****

# Coming Down on a Sunny Day

****

**Epilogue: What About the Moon and Stars?**

Castiel rose through the sky above Colorado Springs, moving leisurely, reveling in the ability to fly once more. The night around him was cloudless and full of stars, but a small rain cloud tumbled in his wake, loosing a mist of spring rain to fall on the world below like the softest of benedictions. He wasn’t causing it intentionally, but the existence of it made him laugh and spin as he flew. Now he was the one powerful enough to bring omens and storms, but his were light and warm and welcome, not cold and brutal and overpowering.

Jimmy laughed with him. The light of the human’s soul was not merely a spot in the back of their shared mind as it usually was with Castiel in charge of the vessel, but spread throughout, strengthening every limb, every movement. His thoughts and emotions informed everything Castiel did. It was an amazingly free and effervescent feeling, as if Castiel’s being was buoyed and upheld by his vessel, no longer contained and restricted by the physical body he was forced to inhabit.

It would not last forever. Castiel knew that their new, intense intimacy was too much for either of them to bear for long. This closeness and partnership was meant for times of need, and eventually they would have to separate again. But now they _could_ separate, which was a gift in itself. Jimmy would be able to have a life. Castiel would be able to revisit his long-forgotten home. Neither was afraid that they would ever be in any danger, for whenever the need arose, they would join together again faster than the eye could blink. The connection between them would be a tether, a line of communication always open. It was no longer a chain.

At the moment, though, they were happy and at peace, enjoying their power and the utter freedom of flight. They had left their dad and brothers on the ground saying that they would be back soon, and they fully intended to be. First, though, they had a task to do.

 _There he is._ Jimmy sensed the entity in the same moment Castiel did.

Castiel had already performed a hairpin turn in order to fly in the correct direction, not up but sideways. He created a tidy slice in reality and passed into the next plane, one of the neighboring spatial dimensions. It was the plane angels used to travel instantaneously from place to place, and Castiel had been unable to visit it since he’d jumped back in time. Now he could do anything.

The cosmic entity, the powerful being who had caused that storm of omen earlier today, was waiting here invisible and enormous, looming over the city as if he had a right to be here. Castiel knew the creature well. As soon as his grace had been returned, he’d known that this was the bringer of storm and that he was still waiting above the city. Castiel had come to send him on his way.

“Zachariah.”

The high-ranking angel had not chosen a vessel for this visit to Earth. He was roughly the size of Pike’s Peak. His six wings, each twice as long as he was tall, drifted behind him and anchored him in space and time. Of his four faces, his human one currently looked down on them. Castiel flew upward in order to hover before his face.

Castiel remembered a time when he had been afraid of this creature of vanity and pride. It was difficult to recall, so distant it was, so impossible. He felt nothing for Zachariah now, neither fear nor pity nor anger. Zachariah and his small-minded machinations had helped cause the defeat of Heaven and the triumph of evil in the original timeline. Yet now, to Castiel, Zachariah was of no more significance than Nur-Ayya.

“Castiel.” Even without a human voice, Zachariah’s communications seemed smarmy and slimy to Castiel’s perceptions. Ever the middle-manager, the victim of his own ambition. But Zachariah was wise enough to be still, watching Castiel without making any move to attack or defend. 

In another lifetime, Zachariah could have swatted Castiel out of the sky or sent him to the relearning rooms, the dungeons of heaven, with only a touch, a thought. Now, Castiel shone brighter than any archangel, so full of power that the excess flowed from his fingertips, the tips of his wings, the ends of his toes, in long spiraling curls of glimmering light. Even Michael or Lucifer would be cautious of Castiel in this state, and Zachariah was nowhere near their stature.

“You made an alliance with a demon in an attempt to wipe me out,” Castiel said.

Zachariah did not try to deny it. “You were a problem.”

“I still am, I imagine.”

Jimmy’s hidden chuckle warmed Castiel, moving through every fiber of his being in a wave of amusement. It was quite a funny joke, for Castiel.

Zachariah did not respond.

Castiel flapped his wings, just because he could. He didn’t think he would ever tire of it. Splinters of light fled from the edges of every feather, shattering the night around him in wing-shaped fireworks.

“You must stop trying to bring about the Apocalypse, Zachariah.”

Zachariah’s eyes flashed in indignation. “How dare you presume… You are a child.”

But Castiel flared, too, his entire body releasing a blinding flash of light like the pulse of a neutron star. Zachariah flinched, but did not move. “Do not call me a child, you calcified creature, slave of envy. I have lived longer and traveled further and suffered more than any angel currently in existence. When you became aware of me, did you investigate who I was? Did you even know my name before I entered this plane and approached you?”

“None of that mattered,” Zachariah said, grinding and slow. “You were a liability that had to be eliminated. I found the creature Nur-Ayya, which had been trying to destroy you without success for years, and offered my assistance. That was all.”

“You must have known I was an angel, though. You were willing to annihilate one of your brethren to further your plans without even knowing your victim’s name.” Now Castiel felt something for Zachariah, but it was only disgust.

“It didn’t matter,” Zachariah said again, and there was a note of sullenness in his expression that Castiel found repugnant enough to lower the Seraph in his estimation even more. He hadn’t thought that was possible.

Castiel flew higher so that he was no longer looking straight into Zachariah’s face, but gazing down upon him. Zachariah was forced to look up to keep an eye on him.

“If you had done your due diligence, if you had bothered to talk to me, or even to find out my name… Perhaps you would have noticed that the Castiel from this time is still with his garrison. Perhaps you would have realized that I came from the future, and therefore probably had a reason for being displaced in time not for a single mission but for years upon years. If you had talked to me, I could have saved you from this.”

“Saved me from what?” Petulance, arrogance, pride. Zachariah was inches from stopping his ears like a human infant. Jimmy found it amusing. Castiel did not.

“From this humiliation.” Castiel leaned forward and touched Zachariah’s forehead.

Zachariah’s head reeled back and his eyes flashed to white as Castiel’s grace invaded his mind. In the split second it took for Castiel to do what had to be done, the Seraph’s mouth opened wide in a silent scream. That mouth was large enough to swallow Castiel whole. But Zachariah had no such thought on his mind.

Castiel withdrew his hand, and Zachariah came back to himself, gaping up at Castiel in dismay. “You...what did...what did you just show me? What was that?”

Castiel smiled, grim and unflinching. “That was the end. That was the result of your machinations, following the will of your superiors to destroy the world with all the petty glee of your childish, grasping heart. That was the nightmare that chased me backward through time, that compelled me, through every terror and agony, every moment of doubt, to pursue my quest to avert that future.”

“There were...so many blackened wings…”

“So many dead angels, I know. So many fallen brothers and sisters. Including you. Did you see yourself through my eyes? Did you see the downfall of what you hold the dearest to your little self?”

“I…” For once in his long life, Zachariah had no words.

Castiel nodded in satisfaction and flexed his wings, pulling himself away. He no longer wanted to be in touching distance of this repulsive being. “You wanted to make a paradise on earth, not for all of God’s creations but for yourself and those you deemed useful to you. Instead, you brought destruction down on all, humans, angels, everyone. All dead because of you.”

“You lie,” Zachariah snarled. Castiel was not surprised. Of course the only response Zachariah had to the truth was flat denial. “You conjured these images out of the air in order to deceive me.”

Castiel tilted his head to the side. "Then how do you explain my existence? You can see a great deal. How did I come to be?" He spread his arms and flicked his wings again, sending away another shower of brilliant sparks.

"I don't know. I can't explain it. I only know that you are lying."

"No. You only know that you want me to be lying, because that is the only way that you can continue to hold on to your delusions of future power. Come, now, Zachariah, why is that I am so powerful? I'm even inhabiting a human vessel. That ought to be limiting me. Yet you have never encountered anything in the universe as strong as I am. None of the other angels promoted me. I fit into no known category of creature, angelic or demonic or earthly. From whence did I come? Look at me and tell me what you see."

Again the childish defiance as Zachariah turned his face away, refusing to look. "I don't know what you are and I don't care. Some mutated little cupid up-jumped by a quirk of reality. A worthless scrap of nothing that somehow managed to wedge yourself in exactly the wrong place. You are meaningless."

"And yet you are afraid of me." Castiel shifted his position in space with barely a thought, appearing before Zachariah's hooded eyes. "I bid you to look on me, brother. What is it about me that is so strange and new and utterly unheard of?"

Zachariah actually closed his eyes. "I refuse. Tell me what it is that you are trying to tell me. I have no desire to look upon you."

Castiel drew back, his jaw clenching in displeasure. It was worse than trying to reason with a toddler-age Sammy at his most disagreeable and rebellious. "Very well. I will tell you what you know is true but are unwilling to acknowledge."

He spun away, flying around Zachariah in joyful little loops and rolls. If he had to stay here and deal with this most irritating of creatures, he could at least enjoy the pleasures of flight while he was doing it. "I am not merely Castiel, the angel, limited by my current vessel. I am become more than that. You see it when you look at me—it is impossible to miss. Therefore you have turned your face away.

"Shall I tell you how it happened? It seemed a mistake to me at the time, and perhaps it was, but it was meant for a higher purpose. I faced the scene you saw, the death of my sisters and brothers, but worse than that, the death of my most precious charge, Dean Winchester. Dean's brother, too, was lost, possessed by Lucifer. It was the worst of all possible ends.

"I saw only one possibility for amending these terrible events. I had to go back to the beginning and change the course of history. I knew that it was a fool's errand. I had been on enough missions to the past to be aware that time has a way of self-correcting, fumbling its way to destiny despite all efforts to turn it away. But I had to try. There was no one to seek guidance from, no one to ask permission. Everyone I could have asked to advise me was dead.

"So I made a choice. I exercised my free will, and I leaped.”

Castiel performed an aileron roll and floated lazily through space, staring up into the depths of the stars above. Their light was visible in this dimension, though it would have startled any human to see it, the spectrum of colors, the lines and whorls that crossed between every point of light, connecting them all in a mosaic of netted celestial bodies. Jimmy hummed, fascinated and soothed by the sight. Castiel found it relaxing as well, which was good, since the memories he was delving into were quite difficult to deal with even in his current state of peace.

"Then it all went wrong. A demon seized me in the same moment I jumped. It clawed me as we traveled, doing a terrible injury to my grace. In my panic and agony, my intentions went awry. I meant to travel back within the vessel I had inhabited in 2009, but somehow we became separated. I reached 1983 and slammed into something, then fell unconscious. 

"I had planned, if it could be called a plan and not simply a desperate, last-chance gambit, to fight Azazel in the nursery of Sam Winchester, to prevent the child’s infection with demon blood and save his mother's life. I hoped that without a suitable pair of brothers to act as vessels for Michael and Lucifer, the angels and demons would be forced to postpone the Apocalypse.

"Instead, I was wounded and unconscious that night and for several months afterward. I woke to discover just how far off from my plans I had landed. I was in my vessel, Jimmy Novak, but he was ten years old. My injuries were such that I was trapped, unable to leave, and I was so weak that the boy was able to take control of the body we inhabited whenever he wished. Not only was Mary Winchester still dead, but the demon I brought back with me in time had slain Jimmy’s parents. He had been horribly abused by the person who had charge of him. We were both orphans, both grievously hurt.”

Jimmy's warmth cradled Castiel, protecting him from the full of impact of these memories. Castiel returned his affection in kind, an infinite feedback loop of emotion. In another life it would have been alien to Castiel. He wouldn't have known what do with it. In this life, he had been all but raised on the milk of human kindness, much of it Jimmy’s. It was nourishment and strength.

Zachariah snorted. "Why am I not surprised to hear this tale of woe? You are as pathetic as those creatures of dust."

"Creatures of dust, you call them? They are children of God, second-born, perhaps, but still His sons and daughters." Castiel ceased his looping flight and returned to hover before Zachariah. The other angel still refused to look at him, but Castiel stared at him anyway, silently condemning his cowardice. "This is where the story changes. This is where history took another road through the wood.

"Did you never wonder, my brother, why it was that God created angels to have a need for human vessels? We understand why demons need to possess people. They are creations of Lucifer, and he can only twist and pervert and corrupt, never make something from nothing. And so he made the possession of a human into a violation, a rape. 

"Angels, though, always have to obtain permission. Yes, in these latter days, it has become a mere item of protocol with no true intent to honor the sacred trust human vessels are giving us. It can even be deceptive in the way we present it, telling the human that this is a way to show their faith in God, when God truly has nothing to do with it, and the angel only intends to use the body to serve their own purposes.

"But why would God do that in the first place? He created angels after an aspect of His own image, just as He created humans. He must have known that some of our number might abuse the abilities He gave us. Lucifer did so almost immediately, and a third of the host followed with him. The way angels treat their human vessels in these days cannot possibly be honoring to God and His original intentions for us."

"Stop speaking in riddles, little angel." Zachariah's voice was a low growl, rippling through the plane in sonic waves. "I tire of your voice."

Castiel and Jimmy chuckled, a sound so full and astonishing and rich that it traveled to every edge of the sphere, and even angels in heaven took notice and turned their ears to listen to the first new sound they had heard in thousands of years. “There is no riddle. I am here to unlock this secret to you now.”

“Then get on with it.”

“The reason God requires angels to take human vessels is so that we can learn to love and be loved by humanity.”

For a moment only, Zachariah was silent, stunned into stillness. Then he threw his head back and laughed, long and loud and hard. It was an ugly sound, enough to compel the angels listening in on the conversation to wince and cringe away. Castiel waited patiently for it to pass. He had expected nothing else.

“I don’t blame you for being skeptical,” Castiel said kindly. “I myself did not understand the truth until this very hour.”

“Oh, didn’t you?” Zachariah calmed, then stared at Castiel in contempt. At least he was meeting Castiel’s eyes again. “Please, do try to explain how you came to this conclusion.”

Castiel floated in the ether. This was the part of his story that was easy to tell and enjoyable to remember. “Despite my failure, I decided to seek out John Winchester and attempt to help his family in any way I could. Jimmy agreed to this, though we knew that it would be far from easy. And John did not leap to accept us. But soon enough, he did, and Jimmy and I became Dean and Sam’s older brothers.

“We grew up together, the four of us. A strange thing, perhaps, that an angel could grow, but my injuries were such that my vessel’s body was not frozen at the age of ten years. In due time both Dean and Sam learned that their brother, whom they had called Jimmy from beginning, was also an angel named Castiel. They accepted me with very little hesitation. Eventually, Jimmy and I both came to call John our dad. We cared for and protected our younger brothers, and the Winchesters took care of us in return. The five of us fought monsters and demons of all kinds. The others even gave me a nickname, Cas. Now I am not merely Castiel, an angel of the Lord. I am also Cas Winchester, brother of Sam and Dean and Jimmy, son of John.” The pride at being able to say this rang in his voice, chiming through the entire plane.

Zachariah snorted. “This is how you have become ‘more’ than a mere angel? The acquisition of human words, meaningless noises to add to your name?”

Castiel flashed, releasing a beam of light in all directions. “No. Be silent and listen.”

Zachariah winced and shut his mouth.

“For one thing, the giving of a name is not meaningless, you enormous buffoon. I have been adopted into a new family, one much better than the broken brotherhood of the angels. We were supposed to love, too. Our utter failure to do so led to the end of our entire species in the future I came from.

“I did not only learn to appreciate Sam and Dean and John as family, as brothers. That would have been valuable enough, but I had already begun to do so in 2009. No, in traveling to the past and becoming injured and trapped in the body of my young vessel, I also learned to love Jimmy Novak, now Jimmy Winchester. And he came to love me, as well.”

“How precious...”

“I said be silent.” Castiel had had enough. He lent a touch of power to the words, and Zachariah no longer had a voice. Castiel leaned back in the ether, relaxing, as the Seraph stared at him with eyes wide and terrified. 

“Yes, it is precious. Love always is. My wounds forced me to share everything equally with Jimmy—every hardship, every kindness. We were unable to hide anything from each other. We traded control of our shared body when necessary, always giving and receiving permission, and in time it came to be as easy as breathing. I fought the monsters and warded our dwellings. He cooked the meals and sang to our brothers when they were uneasy. We both hurt when our brothers hurt and rejoiced when they rejoiced. We comforted each other when our memories became too much to bear. We reveled in our rare moments of peace and appreciated the beauty of the world around us wherever it could be found. We loved and guarded and protected. 

“No angel in history has ever lived so with his vessel, not for thirteen years, not even for thirteen minutes. No angel has ever tried. We’ve always been so focused on our mission, our orders from above, that we never paused to consider what it was all leading to. But I’ve had a lot of time to ponder.”

Castiel watched the silent Zachariah in contemplation for a moment. He did not feel superior to the other angel. Instead, looking back on his history, the long journey he had taken from there to here, he felt immensely humbled. It had taken extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary relationships, to open Castiel's eyes. He did not blame the other angels for their failings, for they had once been his failings as well.

He could feel the attention of the other angels now, listening in with great interest. In coming to this plane, it had not been his intention to broadcast his story to the entirety of the host. He had only wanted to warn Zachariah away before the Seraph did something truly idiotic. But this was as fine a way as any to inform Heaven that the Apocalypse was off the table. Forever.

Castiel broadened his voice, speaking loud and clear, so that all with ears to listen could hear and understand. "Then you decided to intervene, my brother. With the intention of killing me, you allied with a demon. You cloaked its presence so that it was able to cross the boundary of my wards and deceive me and my little brother out into the wilderness, where it attacked me. It corrupted my mangled grace, trapping me in my own hell of isolation, believing my family was in danger and unable to help them. It was agony and torture, and it was the cruelest fate you could have condemned me to. Not only did my prison cause me immense pain, but I also believed I was alone, utterly and completely.

"But I was not. I was not alone. I was never alone." Jimmy's presence glowed behind Castiel's eyes, and the unfathomable strength of the human's spirit sent light beaming out from them as from a lighthouse, a band of brilliance to guard the wary and warn the foolish. Through Jimmy's eyes, Castiel saw the events of the day after he had been imprisoned. 

The Winchesters had fought for him. He'd never seen them fight for anything quite so furiously, so relentlessly. It warmed him through and through, and that heat also expanded from Jimmy and Castiel, spreading out into the universe in all directions.

They, too, were a star, connected and bound up with all of the other celestial bodies.

"Because of our unprecedented relationship, our compassion for each other, Jimmy was able to reach me in my prison. He made the trek several times, becoming a messenger between me and the outside world. Meanwhile, our dad and brothers harrowed Earth for a means to save me. They found it. You made a fatal mistake, Zachariah."

Zachariah raised his eyebrows, and Castiel smiled.

"No, it wasn't trusting a demon with this important task. That was a very stupid thing to do, yes, but it wasn't fatal. Your fatal mistake was attacking the Winchester family. They fight for their own. And I am theirs. 

"Not an hour ago, Dean and John Winchester found Nur-Ayya and forced it to return my grace. When it became obvious that they would succeed, Jimmy entered my prison one last time. In the extremity of hope and fear, a final barrier was crossed. Over the years it had weakened and thinned as our minds rubbed against it, and in this last day, it finally became permeable, trembling in the ebb and flow of our spirits, our desperation, our furious efforts to communicate with each other. In the final moments, Jimmy and I both pressed against it, willing it away, reaching for each other through the last distance that separated us. And the barrier fell.

“We became one. The power of a human soul and the glory of angelic grace joined immutably, like two waves mingling on a beach.

"We walked out of the cage together. Every wall crumbled to dust. Nothing could have stopped us. We received my grace and purified it.

"It was easy."

Castiel glided back into the ether, looking down on Zachariah with solemnity and joy. He spread his arms and his wings, letting his light and voice become a beacon throughout this entire dimension, and all dimensions. He felt the eyes of the angels, and a few other creatures who could perceive such things, and he smiled. Zachariah no longer looked away but stared at Castiel with dread, unable now even to blink.

"Look upon me, brother." He proclaimed it across the stars, a triumph-song of life. "This is your doing. What you meant for evil, God used for good. Your schemes and plans have led not to the end of the world, but to the completion of my destiny. I am the first angel to fulfill God's plan, but I will not be the last.”

Zachariah shook with fury, and Castiel nodded gently. “Yes, I know what you would say now. You would object that this could not be God’s plan, that the existence of such a powerful creature as I have become is too much for the universe to bear. But in truth, this is the only way that so much power can be allowed to exist. I would never use this power to hurt humanity, because it is born from love for them. Likewise, Jimmy would never use it against the angelic host, because he has no desire to hurt me. Any angel and human who attain this power will not use for evil, because the very nature of it precludes harm. 

“So much better than trying to attain power through those ancient trinkets left scattered about, or through more dangerous and esoteric means, isn’t it? I shudder to think what I could have become if I had been facing the Apocalypse alone, instead of with these brothers of mine, and felt that I had to do something, anything, to save the world. I would have taken any risk, grasped at any opportunity that seemed to offer even the slightest chance.”

For a moment, Castiel let himself imagine it. He’d known from the beginning that his jump backward in time had very little chance of succeeding, but he’d done it anyway. What if some other option had occurred to him first? He could have escaped the battlefield and pursued another path, one that would have had terrible consequences. He’d have tried anything to save the world, once Dean had convinced him that it must be saved. He would have thrown himself away without a moment’s hesitation, on the faintest of possibilities. He could have been lost.

In coming to this end, instead, Castiel had been saved as well.

He narrowed his eyes at Zachariah. “But that’s not going to happen. This is how it is, and this is how it is going to be.” With the gentlest motion of his wings, he lowered himself to hover before his brother’s face. “There will be no Apocalypse. You and the other angelic leaders will cease your vain attempts to end the world and bring about your conception of paradise. You will no longer lie to the lower angels. You will not consort with demons and monsters. You will not manipulate humans and deceive them into seeking their own destruction. You will not release Lucifer from his cage.”

With each command, Castiel released a short burst of memory into the ether, broadcasting it out in all directions so that the other angels would witness the truth of his words. The moment he realized that Zachariah had been orchestrating events to start the Apocalypse. The betrayal of Uriel and their fight to the death. The demon Ruby, manipulating Sam Winchester, manipulated by the angels and Lilith in her turn. The opening of the cage and the subsequent breaking of the world.

Zachariah winced minutely at each one.

Castiel raised his chin, staring him down. "I have grown beyond your command, and so I am appointing myself to Earth. Permanently. I will remain with my family, the Winchesters. I will guard them for as long as they live, and then I will guard their children, and their children after that, and their children after that. There will be no Apocalypse, and if you or anyone else tries to start it again, I will end the threat by any means necessary. Do you understand?"

He released Zachariah's voice. Yet the Seraph did not reply. Zachariah remained still, staring back at Castiel mutinously.

"I'll ask again. Do we have an agreement?" Again Castiel flashed with light. This time it was not quite so brilliantly pure, but red-tinged with the edge of a threat.

Zachariah's nostrils flared. "We have an agreement."

"Good." Castiel nodded and turned away, ready to return to Earth. He could hear the angels on the edge of his perception buzzing in agitation and discussing all he'd shown them in whispers that were excited, fearful, angry, and doubting. "Angel radio" was going to be crowded with gossip for decades to come, and now Castiel could hear it again. What a pleasure that would be.

Dean’s sarcasm was rubbing off on him.

"Wait," Zachariah called, and Castiel turned back, raising an eyebrow. Zachariah grimaced, but did not back down. "How do I know that what you're saying is true, about how you joined with a human to gain this power? How do I know that you're not lying, and you actually found one of those trinkets or some obscure ritual, or even opened the gates of Purgatory?"

“Why, brother, I did not realize that your senses had become so dull.” Castiel returned to Zachariah for a final time. “Can you really not sense that the power streaming from me is that of a human soul? Shall I have Jimmy come forward and speak to you himself?”

Zachariah scowled and leaned back, so desperate he was not to be forced to interact with a human. Castiel’s sense of disgust for him heightened further. “That will not be necessary.”

“Then what more proof do you require? You know just by looking at me that I am a new creature, hitherto unknown in the entire cosmos. I told you my story from beginning to end.”

Zachariah’s wings flapped in agitation. “You have given me no proof, only words upon words, while your insolence is such that it make it difficult for me to listen to you…”

“Enough!” Castiel thundered. “Let us have done with talking. I will give you a final gift, my brother. It’s more than you deserve, but Jimmy has asked me to try the gentle approach one last time. After this, if you still do not accept the truth, I will take more drastic measures. Your continued arrogance and denial of reality makes you a threat to all I hold dear, and that I cannot abide.”

“What are you talking about, what gift could you possibly…”

Castiel reached forward and placed a hand on Zachariah's forehead once more. This time it was not a single memory, a single isolated scene, that he pressed into the other angel's mind. He gave him his life.

Not the entire thing—that would have been too much. Not even the entire thirteen years he had spent with the Winchesters, fourteen if he included the year before he jumped back in time. Castiel gave him important moments that stood out in his memory, a string of impressions and emotions and epiphanies all strung together like links in a slender golden chain, each binding Castiel to Earth and to the humans he called his family.

He had already shown the angels moments from the original Apocalypse that proved just how bad it had been. Now he showed Zachariah the moments that had taught him to value humanity to the point that he chose to sacrifice himself for them at Dean's request. Dean and Sam's reunion after Dean’s resurrection. Sam's immense goodness of spirit despite what had been done to him. Children playing in a park. Bobby Singer's quiet wisdom and dogged tenacity. Ellen and Jo Harvelle's courage and kindness. A woman giving a homeless man the last of her money so he could buy food. And Dean, Dean, always Dean, fighting and fighting to save his fellow man no matter what it cost him, only to go down at the bitter, broken end.

Then, after the leap back in time, Castiel's experiences as a broken angel trapped in a wounded boy. The first waking in the closet, his terror and anguish and guilt, met quickly by Jimmy's faith and hope. How swiftly the boy had given his permission to Castiel, how sweetly he had trusted the stranger who had appeared in his head. Then John Winchester, wary at first, too stricken by loss and fear to open his arms and his heart to the two orphans who showed up on his doorstep. But he took them in anyway, cleansed their wounds, listened to them, and believed what they had to say.

Other moments throughout the years. Reading books to Sammy before bedtime. Eating food cooked by Dean's young hands. Using what shattered bits of his grace he could gather up to heal and protect, then being looked after by John and Bobby when his body could not bear the strain, and later by Dean and Sammy as well. The hard conversation with John Winchester, telling him not to indulge in alcohol any longer because it was taking him down a dark path—the fear that he would not listen, the relief when he did. That particular period had been very hard on Jimmy, and Castiel had comforted him many times in the shelter of their mind, telling him that he would always keep him safe and never let him be hurt again.

The illness Castiel suffered when his body was sixteen and the tender way Dean had cared for him. That instance had prompted many realizations for Castiel, many reflections and new understandings on the nature of love, the failure of angels and the success of humans. Pontiac, Jimmy’s slow, sweet romance with Amelia, then the way Dean and John and even Sammy fought for Castiel and Jimmy against Nur-Ayya. More hunts, more monsters, more moments of bravery and strength and sacrifice and love. The car crash last summer and Jimmy’s fortitude in the midst of his own suffering as he struggled desperately to save Castiel’s life.

Colorado Springs. The Winchesters’ protectiveness of Castiel, unwilling to use his abilities to complete their task because it would hurt him. Jake Talley, valuing and befriending Castiel because of the flaws he witnessed, not in spite of them. The children in the park instantly dropping their plans in order to help a crying little girl.

Then the fight against Nur-Ayya. John Winchester’s sheltering comfort. Dean Winchester’s protective fury. Sam Winchester’s compassionate intellect. Jimmy Winchester’s unwavering courage.

All leading to that final moment when Jimmy and Castiel joined as one and shattered the prison that had bound Castiel in a blinding burst of light and joy. They had known then that nothing would ever be the same. 

They were just waiting now for the rest of the world, of the universe, to catch up.

Castiel raised his hand and moved back, watching Zachariah's face. The other angel was still and silent for some time, struggling to absorb all that Castiel had shown him. When he finally raised his head and met Castiel's eyes, Zachariah's face was drawn with dismay.

Castiel watched him. "Do you believe me now?"

Zachariah said nothing.

"This was your last warning, brother. Feel free to share those memories with any of the other angels. It's important that they understand. You can even travel back in the past thirteen years and observe the moments as they happen, if you need further proof. Just be sure to keep your distance. The Winchesters are well aware of the threat most angels pose, and they know how to fight them. They will not take any interference kindly, neither now nor in the past."

Zachariah blinked.

"We're done here."

Castiel turned away from Zachariah and flew back to Earth, slipping through the cracks in reality to return to the dimension that now felt like home. He carried the connections of the stars with him, beads of light glimmering in his wings, strung outward into space in all directions. Jimmy laughed as they descended through the atmosphere, spawning misty, rolling rain clouds in their wake. Everything was beautiful.

Behind them, the angels talked and discussed and argued and debated. Castiel tired quickly of their chatter and chose to ignore it, "switching off" angel radio to revel once again in the power of flight. They floated over the city of Colorado Springs, watching the thousands of points of light shining in the darkness like so many fireflies, each distinct and shining, a signal through the darkness that life still thrived and moved and had its being.

 _What now?_ Jimmy asked. _What if other angels take your challenge and come to Earth, seeking vessels with whom to live and grow so that they too can know this power?_

"Then they will be better off for the journey, as I am," Castiel said easily.

_What if an angel without good intentions finds a like-minded vessel, and together they grow to attain this power with the intent of doing harm?_

Castiel considered. "I find it very difficult to believe that any creature that desires power for the sake of it will be able to fully trust and love another being, even one with the same goals and aspirations. Such spirits would necessarily be self-absorbed and inwardly focused, which would make such a relationship very difficult. Nigh impossible, I would say."

_Still. It's possible, however remotely._

"Perhaps. If such a strange creature does arise, we'll deal with it. In the meantime, perhaps others of my brethren with pure intentions will make the same journey, and we'll have allies."

_Wouldn't that be nice._

"It would."

Having had his fill of gamboling in the air, Castiel stretched his wings out straight and sped off over the dark landscape below, heading east. The wind of their passage roared around them like a freight train, like a hurricane, like a tidal wave carrying them along. The joy of it brought more laughter from Jimmy and Castiel, welling up to bubble over like a clear-water spring.

 _Where are we going?_ Jimmy asked when it was clear that they had left Colorado far behind them. He shouldn't have needed to ask, but Castiel was veiling his intentions, not cruelly but with something like a mischievous twitch of his hand.

"You'll see."

Lands of prairies and trees and fields of grain passed below them in less time than it took to describe, and then they were descending on a cluster of lights much smaller than Colorado Springs, but larger than most of the villages and towns they had passed over. Jimmy began to get a glimmer. _Is this... It's Indiana, isn't it?_

"West Lafayette. Purdue University."

_Where Amelia is finishing her degree... Castiel..._

"The war is effectively over, Jimmy. I think it's time you finally had that first date. I don't suppose she'll mind if we show up at her door uninvited?"

A pulse of joy began to burn between them, hesitant at first, then louder and stronger. But still Jimmy could not quite believe it, could not quite grasp the opportunity with both hands. _I don't think she will. But, but what will you do? Are you going to just hang out while I spend time with my girlfriend?_

"I am healed now, Jimmy. I can leave you if I choose, and so I will. Not forever. Just for a time. I will watch over all of my brothers, and when you're ready, I'll retrieve you. We'll go back and celebrate with our family. We'll turn the entire city of Colorado Springs on its ear with our racket. But first, I want you to have this moment. You can finally have the privacy to say what you need to say and do what you’ve been longing to do. Tell her you love her. Kiss her. I won’t watch."

_Okay, okay, you big goon. Stop talking now. You’ve convinced me._

Castiel smiled and did the spiritual equivalent of ruffling Jimmy’s hair, buffeting him briefly with the rough force of his affectionate joy. He closed his wings, tucking his limbs in close to his body, and they plummeted toward the ground like a stooping hawk.

They alighted in the hallway of a dorm room, illuminating the plain fixtures and neutral decorations with the starlight they carried in their wings. Jimmy laughed, and sparks flew from their face and hands, causing no harm where they landed, only shimmering for a moment, then disappearing. And they reached out to knock on the door.

Seconds later, it opened.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes _Coming Down on a Sunny Day._ There are still many stories that could be told in this AU, of course. I never even had them meet the Harvelles, though I thought about it. Bobby and Pastor Jim and Caleb and plenty of other hunters never showed their faces. It's entirely possible that Gabriel noticed the spark of a fellow angelic exile and came by to check things out. The boys faced plenty of other hardships and fights and good times. This thing I wrote spanned thirteen years, after all, and I only examined a few days through that entire span, and spent over 40,000 words on a single day—this last one. 
> 
> Still, I hope that this is satisfying for you all. I may write more in this universe, but if I do, it will be in a different form. Perhaps I’ll look at a few other days in that span. Perhaps Samandriel or Rachel will be inspired by Castiel’s example. Perhaps I'll start reinterpreting canon events, since this was entirely pre-series. But with such a leveled-up angel on their side as Jimmy/Castiel, the Winchesters are going to have a much easier time of it this go-round. It'll be pretty boring. There’s a reason poor Castiel constantly gets nerfed on the show. Kind of lowers the stakes when you take the Apocalypse off the table forever. And everything else bad that powered-up Cas would never let happen to his family, like, you know, going to hell and stuff.
> 
> Unless Jimmy's fears about a bad-intentioned angel finding a like-minded human and following Castiel's footsteps turn out to be true, of course. Or something else bad happens. 
> 
> But rest assured that the Winchesters will keep having adventures. They will continue to save people and kill things, the family business, now just a bit expanded with a couple more members. If you ever find yourself feeling lonesome for this version of the Winchesters, I advise you to go to YouTube and look up a Supernatural fanvid called "What About Everything." (At the end of the playlist linked in the author's notes.) That vid pretty much sums up how I see things going for them from now on. I think the other fanvids in that playlist are pretty appropriate for this story, too, especially super-powered Cas looking all badass and stuff.
> 
> Thanks for reading and reviewing and sharing and everything. I love this story and I hope you had even a fraction of the amount of fun reading it as I did writing it. It might have ended on a bit of a weird note, but it all felt inevitable, in the end. These last two chapters did make me nervous, I’ll admit. It felt pretty risky. But I hope it all made sense to you, as it does to me. I didn’t realize where it was going until I was halfway through writing Book 4, but once I understood, there was nothing else that could have happened.
> 
> I started writing this concept, in its original form, before Season 5 even started airing. I’ve retconned very little (possibly nothing? I’m not positive), just worked in new concepts as they appeared in the show. I remember that there was a very plausible fan theory about Lucifer wanting to possess Sam, and I included that in my Apocalypse long before it was canon. It’s been pretty interesting to see how things shaped up in the two parallel universes of the show and this story. I think I needed to wait those three years, though, to finally find the right ending.
> 
> If you'd like to read another Supernatural time travel AU with Cas going back to try to fix things, I suggest _All in the Details_ by Colleen, which is in my favorite stories at ff.n. A very different take on this idea, but I enjoyed reading it very much. There’s also _If I Knew Then What I Know Now,_ which has Dean traveling back with his grown-up memories to inhabit his four-year-old self. (Cas comes too.) Check ‘em out.


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